LIBRARY 

UNlVlRStTY  OF 
CAUFORMIA 
SAN  DIEGO 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA   SAN  DIEGO 


3  1822  02669  8910 


THE 

TWENTIETH  CENTURY 
THEATRE 


OBSERVATIONS  ON  THE  CONTEMPORARY 
ENGLISH  AND  AMERICAN  STAGE 


BY 


WILLIAM    LYON   PHELPS 

LAMPSON   PROFESSOR  OF  ENGLISH   LITERATURE  AT  YALE 

MEMBER  OF  THE  NATIONAL   INSTITUTE 

OF  ARTS  AND  LETTERS 


THE  MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1920 

All  rigktt  reservtd 


Copyright,  1918, 
Bv  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 

Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  October,  1918. 


NnrSaoolr  53wsB 

J.  S.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


JACK   RANDALL  CRAWFORD 


PREFACE 

This  little  book  contains  a  discussion,  with  suf- 
ficient corroborative  figures  and  specific  illustra- 
tions, of  some  of  the  conditions  and  tendencies 
of  the  English  and  American  stage  of  1 900-1 91 8. 
The  Modern  Drama  is  so  much  greater  than  the 
Modern  Theatre  that  we  are  confronted  with  a 
huge  problem.  We  are  living  in  the  best  period 
of  play-writing  since  the  age  of  Shakespeare; 
but  how  shall  Americans  outside  of  New  York 
have  an  opportunity  to  see  these  new  and  original 
dramas?  How  can  the  modern  theatre  become 
a  part  of  our  national  life  ?  I  have  answered  these 
two  questions,  but  I  wish  I  knew  exactly  how  to 
bring  the  remedy  to  the  patient,  or  to  make  the 
patient  want  it  seriously  enough  to  insist  on  hav- 
ing it. 

Some  pages  of  the  first,  second,  and  fifth  chapters, 
here  revised,  originally  appeared  respectively  in 
the  Yale  Review,  October  191 1,  Old  Penn,  April 
1916,  and  The  Art  World,  December  1916. 

W.  L.  P. 

HtTRON  City,  Michigan, 
Tuesday,  23  July  1918. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Present  Condition  of  the  Anglo-American  Stage  i 
The  Decay  of  Evil  Tendencies  .  .  .  .42 
The  Drama  League  and  the  Independent  Theatre  64 
The  Bible  and  Poetry  on  the  Stage  .  .  .87 
Shakespeare  on  the  Modern  Stage     ...      93 

Actors  and  Acting in 

Dramatic  Criticism 130 

Postscript 143 

Index 145 


IX 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY 
THEATRE 


PRESENT   CONDITION  OF  THE  ANGLO- 
AMERICAN  STAGE 

Pessimistic  criticism  always  conventional  —  Ben  Jonson  and 
Richard  Steele  —  recent  elevation  of  the  drama  —  greatest 
writers  now  dramatists  —  prophecies  by  William  Sharp  and 
Bronson  Howard  —  literary  quality  of  modern  drama  —  the 
publication  of  plays  —  Henry  Arthur  Jones  —  Bernard  Shaw 
on  prefaces  —  bad  conditions  of  the  American  stage  —  physical 
luxuries  and  spiritual  necessities  —  the  disease  and  the  remedy 
—  advantages  of  stock  companies  —  the  Artistic  Theatre  at 
Moscow  —  the  Continent  compared  with  America  —  statistics 
since  1900  —  death  of  melodrama  and  farce  —  influence  of 
the  movies  —  the  rise  of  Comedy  —  vaudeville  —  musical 
comedies  and  light  opera. 

The  fact  that  many  sober-minded  and  elderly 
persons  —  who  remember  the  days  when  they 
went  fresh-eyed  to  the  theatre  —  loudly  condemn 
the  modem  stage,  should  cause  no  disquietude 
to  those  familiar  with  the  history  of  dramatic 
criticism.  For  in  almost  every  age  it  has  been 
customary  for  serious  folk  to  denounce  the  work 
done  by  their  contemporaries,  to  describe  it  and 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

the  public  taste  as  degenerate,  and  to  contrast 
both  with  some  mythical  former  time,  when  plays 
were  noble  and  audiences  discriminating.  I  sup- 
pose the  world's  high-water  mark  in  dramatic 
production  was  about  the  year  1607,  when  Shake- 
speare had  produced  his  masterpieces  of  tragedy 
and  his  giant  comrades  were  in  full  activity. 
And  yet  in  the  early  days  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, Ben  Jonson,  who  knew  the  stage  and  the 
public  as  well  as  anyone,  remarked  not  once,  but 
repeatedly,  that  the  condition  of  the  drama  was 
enough  to  make  thoughtful  men  despair.  In 
1607,  in  the  preface  to  Volpone,  he  wrote,  "But 
it  will  here  be  hastily  answered  .  .  .  that  now  espe- 
cially in  dramatick,  or  (as  they  terme  it)  stage- 
poetrie,  nothing  but  ribaldry,  profanation,  blas- 
phemy, all  licence  of  offence  to  god,  and  man,  is 
practis'd.  I  dare  not  denie  a  great  part  of  this 
(and  am  sorry,  I  dare  not).  .  .  .  But,  that  all 
are  embarqv'd  in  this  bold  aduenture  for  hell,  is 
a  most  vncharitable  thought,  and,  vtter'd,  a  more 
maHcious  slander."  Being  in  his  own  eyes  one  of 
the  few  living  exceptions  to  the  prevailing  degra- 
dation, he  declared,  "I  shall  raise  the  despis'd 
head  of  poetrie  againe,  and  stripping  her  out  of 
those  rotten  and  base  rags,  wherewith  the  Times 
haue  adulterated  her  form,  restore  her  to  primitiue 
habit,  feature,  and  maiesty."    Again:   "The  en- 


THE  TWENTIETH   CENTURY  THEATRE 

crease  of  which  lust  in  liberty,  together  with  the 
present  trade  of  the  Stage,  in  all  their  misc'Iine 
Enterludes,  what  learned  or  liberall  soule  doth 
not  already  abhor?  where  nothing  but  the  garbage 
of  the  time  is  vtter'd,"  etc.  He  must  have  been 
thinking  of  the  feeding  of  garbage  to  the  bears  in 
the  bear-pit  as  shown  by  the  lines  (brought  to  my 
attention  by  Professor  Rea  of  Earlham  College) 
from  the  Apologetical  Dialogue  at  the  end  of 
Poetaster  J  referring  to  the  taste  of  the  "  multitude  " ; 

And  like  the  barking  students  of  Bears-college, 

To  swallow  up  the  garbage  of  the  time 

With  greedy  gullets  whilst  myself  sit  by 

Pleased,  and  yet  tortured,  with  their  beastly  feeding. 

In  the  Dedication  to  Jonson's  Catiline,  1611,  we 
read,  "In  so  thick,  and  darke  an  ignorance,  as 
now  almost  couers  the  age,  .  .  .  you  dare,  in 
these  lig-giuen  times,  to  countenance  a  legitimate 
Poeme."  Finally,  in  the  address  To  the  Reader 
which  prefaced  the  quarto  edition  of  The  Alchemist, 
161 2,  he  said,  ''Thou  wert  neuer  more  fair  in  the 
way  to  be  cosened,  than  in  this  age,  in  Poetrie, 
especially  in  Plays:  wherein,  now  the  concupis- 
cence of  dances  and  of  antics  so  reigneth,  as  to 
run  away  from  nature,  and  be  afraid  of  her,  is 
the  only  point  of  art  that  tickles  the  spectators. 
But  how  out  of  purpose,  and  place,  do  I  name 

3 


THE  TWENTIETH   CENTURY  THEATRE 

art?  "  One  would  think  that  these  words  were 
written  by  some  sober-minded  critic  of  a  twentieth 
century  musical  comedy,  rather  than  by  Ben 
Jonson  of  his  contemporaries. 

Leaping  a  hundred  years,  we  find  Richard  Steele 
proclaiming  that  intellectual  interest  in  the  drama 
had  vanished,  that  all  the  people  cared  about  was 
scenery  and  show,  that  the  stage  carpenter  had 
usurped  the  functions  of  the  poet.  In  the  pro- 
logue to  his  play.  The  Funeral,  1701,  we  find 

Nature's  deserted,  and  dramatic  art, 
To  dazzle  now  the  eye,  has  left  the  heart ; 
Gay  lights  and  dresses,  long  extended  scenes, 
Demons  and  angels  moving  in  machines, 
All  that  can  now,  or  please,  or  fright  the  fair, 
May  be  performed  without  a  writer's  care, 
And  is  the  skill  of  carpenter,  not  player. 

Without  attempting  any  complacent  white- 
washing of  contemporary  stains,  I  believe  that 
during  the  last  thirty  years  the  highest  peaks  of 
literature  have  nearly  all  been  revealed  as  Drama. 
The  foremost  writers  in  most  countries  have 
been  or  are  dramatists.  This  is  such  an  amazing 
change  in  literary  topography  from  the  mid- 
nineteenth  century  that  it  forces  from  us  observa- 
tion followed  by  considerable  reflection.  Ibsen, 
Bjornson,  and  Strindberg,  incomparably  the  great- 
est authors  in  Scandinavian  literature ;  the  noblest 

4 


,THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

contemporary  writers  in  the  French  language, 
Rostand  and  Maeterlinck;  the  most  powerful 
living  man-of -letters  in  Italy,  D'Annunzio;  the 
leaders  of  contemporary  literature  in  the  German 
language,  Hauptmann,  Sudermann,  Hofmannsthal, 
Schnitzler,  Bahr ;  late  in  his  career,  Tolstoi  devoted 
himself  to  the  drama,  and  left  posthumous  plays 
as  well;  twentieth  century  pieces  by  Chekhov, 
Gorki,  and  Andreev  have  been  acted  all  over  the 
world ;  England's  greatest  living  writer  composed 
a  drama  of  the  Napoleonic  wars. 

During  this  same  period  there  have  been  more 
good  plays  written  in  the  English  language  than 
during  any  other  succession  of  thirty  years  since 
the  death  of  Shakespeare  in  1616.  For  three 
centuries  no  generation  could  show  such  a  bril- 
liant galaxy  of  dramatists  as  Oscar  Wilde,  Arthur 
Pinero,  Henry  Arthur  Jones,  Stephen  PhilHps, 
Bernard  Shaw,  John  Sjoige,  W.  B.  Yeats,  J.  M. 
Barrie,  John  Galsworthy,  Granville  Barker.  On 
the  A^merican  side  of  the  ocean  there  was  no  na- 
tional drama  until  it  was  founded  in  1890  by  Clyde 
Fitch;  since  then,  Augustus  Thomas,  William 
Vaughn  Moody,  Eugene  Walter,  Louis  Anspacher, 
Jesse  Williams,  and  others  have  made  the  dream 
come  true.  We  are  living  in  the  daylight,  not  in 
the  dawn. 

In  his  Life  oj  Browning,  1890,  William  Sharp 
S 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

prophesied  the  coming  hegemony  of  the  Drama; 
and  with  that  gift  of  clairvoyance  that  the  ancients 
believed  came  with  the  near  approach  of  death, 
Bronson  Howard,  a  name  always  to  be  held  in 
honour  in  America,  uttered  these  eloquent  and 
stimulating  words : 

The  brilliant  indications  shown  by  our  younger  writers 
for  the  stage  who  are  now  crowding  to  the  front,  eager,  ear- 
nest, and  persistent,  with  their  eyes  on  the  future  and  not 
the  past,  coming  from  every  walk  of  life,  from  universities 
and  aU  other  sources  of  active  thought,  are  the  basis  of  my 
prophecy.  It  is  this:  In  aU  hmnan  probability  the  next 
great  revival  of  literature  in  the  language  wiH  be  in  the 
theatre.  The  English-speaking  world  has  been  gasping 
for  literary  breath,  and  now  we  begin  to  feel  a  coming  breeze. 
I  may  not  live  to  fuUy  enjoy  it,  but  every  man  of  my  own 
age  breathes  the  air  more  freely  already.  Let  us  hope  that 
the]|drama  of  this  century  will  yet  redeem  our  desert  of 
general  literature.    The  waters  of  our  Nile  are  rising. 

Some  reasons  which  partially  account  for  the 
advance  of  the  drama  may  be  given  as  follows : 
first,  the  literary  quahty  of  the  drama  has  greatly 
improved;  second,  authors  all  over  the  world 
who  have  attained  success  in  other  literary  forms 
are  turning  their  ambition  and  their  talents  toward 
the  theatre ;  third,  the  custom  of  publishing  plays 
has  spread  rapidly,"  and  there  is  now  actually  a 
reading  public  for  plays  either  written  in  or  trans- 
lated into  English,  something  practically  unknown 

6 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

outside  of  university  courses  until  a  few  years 
ago.  I  used  to  hear  it  constantly  asserted  that 
literar}^  skill  was  neither  necessary  nor  even  desir- 
able on  the  stage ;  one  must  not  write,  one  must 
build  a  play.  One  of  our  chief  American  drama- 
tists, who  has  seen  a  great  light  since  he  made  the 
remark,  said  that  if  he  were  not  writing  plays,  he 
would  not  dream  of  writing  books ;  he  would  be 
building  bridges,  or  engaged  in  architecture.  Count- 
less stage  successes  have  been  pointed  out,  like  The 
Music  Master,  for  example,  which  are  innocent  of 
literary  merit.  But  a  change  has  come  over  the 
face  of  things.  Out  of  a  number  of  possible  illus- 
trations, it  is  worth  observing  that  "literary" 
dramas  like  The  Blue  Bird,  The  Piper,  Fanny's  First 
Play  and  others,  have  been  among  the  most  success- 
ful box-ofhce  productions  of  the  twentieth  century. 

Second,  the  fact  that  so  many  poets  and  novelists 
have  become  dramatists  is  highly  significant. 
J.  M.  Barrie,  John  Galsworthy,  Bernard  Shaw, 
Arnold  Bennett  were  all  established  novelists 
before  they  attained  fame  as  playwrights.  Stephen 
Phillips  won  renown  as  a  poet  before  writing  plays ; 
the  same  is  true  of  William  Vaughn  Moody. 
Hauptmann  and  Sudermann  were  respectively 
poet  and  novelist  before  the  notable  year  of  1889, 
the  beginning  of  modern  German  drama ;  Chekhov 
and  Gorki  had  wide  vogue  as  short-story  writers 

7 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

before  turning  their  attention  to  the  stage.  All 
this  means  that  the  ranks  of  the  dramatists  are 
being  constantly  reenforced  by  men-of-letters  who 
have  won  distinction  in  some  other  form  of  literature. 

Third,  the  publication  of  plays,  always  customary 
in  France,  did  not  become  at  all  popular  in  England 
or  in  America  in  modern  times  until  after  the 
beginning  of  the  twentieth  century.  In  an  article 
written  in  London  in  1897,  Henry  James  remarked  : 
"It  is  one  of  the  odd  things  of  our  actual  esthetics 
that  the  more  theatres  multiply  the  less  anyone 
reads  a  play  —  the  less  anyone  cares,  in  a  word, 
for  the  text  of  the  adventure.  That  no  one  ever 
does  read  a  play  has  long  been  a  commonplace  of  the 
wisdom  of  booksellers."  This  observation,  true 
enough  when  written,  would  now  be  grotesquely 
false.  Publishers'  advertisements  in  the  twentieth 
century  differ  from  those  of  the  nineteenth  in  no 
respect  more  sharply  than  in  this  very  thing  — 
in  fact,  one  might  say  that  the  printing  of  plays  in 
the  English  language  is  at  once  the  most  startling 
and  the  most  significant  feature  in  the  book  trade 
of  our  day.  The  last  man  to  hold  out  against  the 
new  movement  was  the  one  man  who  could  best 
meet  the  test  of  print  —  J.  M.  Barrie.  In  1914 
he  grudgingly  released  a  few  of  his  plays,  and  in 
1 9 18  he  decided  to  publish  them  all. 

These  are  golden  days  for  the  deaf  —  the  ear  is 
8 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY   THEATRE 

losing  importance  every  hour.  Millions  visit  the 
movies,  where  the  deaf  are  on  an  exact  equality 
with  those  blessed  or  cursed  with  acute  hearing; 
and  the  absence  of  repertory  theatres  in  America 
is  partly  made  up  by  the  fact  that  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  people  read  plays  in  the  lamplit  silence 
of  home. 

The  first  man  in  England  to  come  out  boldly 
and  uncompromisingly  for  the  publication  of  plays 
was  that  earnest  and  high-minded  dramatist, 
Henry  Arthur  Jones.  In  the  preface  to  Saints 
and  Sinners,  printed  in  1891,  he  said,  "In  the 
present  uncertain  relations  of  English  literature 
and  the  modern  drama,  an  author  may  be  excused 
for  having  some  doubts  as  to  whether  the  interests 
of  either  are  to  be  served  by  the  publication  of  plays 
whose  perusal  may  only  serve  to  show  how  sharp 
is  the  division  between  them.  The  American 
Copyright  Bill  removes  these  disabilities,  and  makes 
it  inexcusable  to  yield  to  these  doubts.  If,  from 
this  time  forward,  a  playwright  does  not  publish 
within  a  reasonable  time  after  the  theatrical  pro- 
duction of  his  piece,  it  will  be  an  open  confession 
that  his  work  was  a  thing  of  the  theatre  merely, 
needing  its  garish  artificial  light  and  surroundings, 
and  not  daring  to  face  the  calm  air  and  cold  day- 
light of  print.  And  further,  if  a  custom  does  not 
now  arise  in  England,  such  as  prevails  in  France, 

9 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

of  publishing  successful  plays,  and  if  a  general 
reading  public  is  not  gradually  drawn  round  the 
drama,  then  it  will  be  a  sign  that  our  stage  remains 
in  the  same  state  of  intellectual  paralysis  that  has 
afiflicted  it  all  the  century." 

Twenty-seven  years  have  passed  since  these 
words  appeared,  and  the  heart's  desire  of  their 
author  has  been  satisfied.  It  is  now  the  custom 
to  publish  both  successful  and  unsuccessful  plays, 
and  a  general  reading  public  has  been  drawn  around 
them.  Mr.  Jones  and  Mr.  Shaw  follow  in  the  wake 
of  Dryden,  not  only  in  publishing  plays,  but  in 
publishing  with  them  significant  prefaces,  and 
indeed  with  Mr.  Shaw  the  play  seems  no  longer 
the  thing  —  it  is  a  footnote  to  the  preface.  Like 
Dryden  and  Ben  Jonson,  Mr.  Jones  appeals  from 
the  decision  of  the  audience  to  the  literary  critics 
and  the  reading  pubhc.  He  believes  that  Michael 
and  His  Lost  Angel,  a  play  damned  in  New  York, 
is  his  best  work ;  after  its  failure  he  published 
it  with  a  preface  contributed  by  a  friend,  who 
wrote,  "Some  comfort  in  the  midst  of  defeat  may 
be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  gods  themselves  fight 
vainly  against  prejudice  and  stupidity."  This 
has  the  defiant  ring  of  the  author  of  The  New  Inn; 
its  appeal  to  a  higher  court  is  interesting. 

Mr.  Shaw  goes  further ;  he  writes  prefaces 
defending  the   custom  of   writing  prefaces,  pref- 

lO 


THE  TWENTIETH   CENTURY   THEATRE 

atory  explanations  of  prefaces.  In  the  preface 
to  the  volume,  Three  Plays  for  Puritans,  he  says, 
"The  reason  most  dramatists  do  not  publish  their 
plays  with  prefaces  is  that  they  cannot  write  them, 
the  business  of  intellectually  conscious  philosopher 
and  skilled  critic  being  no  part  of  the  playwright's 
craft.  ...  I  am  ashamed  neither  of  my  work 
nor  of  the  way  it  is  done.  I  like  explaining  its 
merits  to  the  huge  majority  who  don't  know  good 
work  from  bad.  ...  I  write  prefaces  as  Dryden 
did,  and  treatises  as  Wagner,  because  I  can ;  and 
I  would  give  half  a  dozen  of  Shakespeare's  plays 
for  one  of  the  prefaces  he  ought  to  have  written." 
So  would  I;  indeed  for  such  a  boon  I  would  give 
Mr.  Shaw's  complete  works,  and  I  count  myself 
among  the  fervent  admirers  of  his  dramas. 

In  the  eighteenth  century,  England  had  good 
theatres,  great  actors,  and  poor  drama ;  to-day  we 
have  original  plays  good  enough  for  anybody's 
taste,  but  the  condition  of  theatrical  art  in  America 
and  for  that  matter  in  England  needs  to  be  alto- 
gether reformed.  The  one  essential  element  — 
excellent  modern  dramas,  we  possess ;  the  other 
side  of  the  thing  is  dark,  and  will  remain  so  until 
the  only  possible  remedy  is  applied.  I  know  exactly 
what  the  disease  is,  and  I  know  exactly  what 
remedy  would  cure  it ;  but  I  have  no  idea  how  to 
bring  the  remedy  to  the  patient. 

II 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

Not  long  ago  I  stood  at  a  street  corner  of  a  small 
New  England  town  and  marvelled  at  the  number 
of  automobiles  that  rolled  by.  There  seemed  to  be 
almost  as  many  Ford  cars  as  there  were  inhabitants, 
for  the  streets  were  more  crowded  with  these 
vehicles  than  the  sidewalks  were  with  pedestrians. 
I  observed  also  that  the  city  possessed  all  the 
advantages  of  modern  civilisation,  so  far  as  these 
were  concerned  with  physical  convenience  and 
comfort;  there  was  every  evidence  of  electric- 
lighting  and  steam-heating;  and  nobody  looked 
hungry.  Shop-windows  exhibited  what  I  assumed 
to  be  contemporary  fashions  in  clothes  —  in  fact, 
it  was  clear  that  the  people  of  this  town  had  every- 
thing necessary  for  the  sustenance,  protection,  and 
adornment  of  the  human  body.  It  was  a  thor- 
oughly contemporary  American  city,  differing  from 
others  only  in  size. 

Yet  it  had  no  actual  theatre,  no  orchestra,  and 
no  art  gallery.  When  the  people  wished  to  hear 
a  modern  play  or  to  listen  to  great  music,  or  to 
contemplate  specimens  of  pictorial  art,  it  was  neces- 
sary to  journey  to  New  York. 

The  absence  of  these  necessities  troubled  me; 
it  troubles  me  still;  but  what  troubles  me  more 
than  their  absence  is  the  fact  that  the  inhabitants 
are  apparently  not  troubled  at  all.  They  think 
they  are  comfortable  ;  they  think  they  are  modern ; 


THE  TWENTIETH   CENTURY  THEATRE 

they  think  they  are  civilised.  "Because  thou 
sayest,  I  am  rich  and  increased  with  goods  and 
have  need  of  nothing ;  and  knowest  not  that  thou 
art  wretched  and  miserable,  and  poor,  and  blind, 
and  naked." 

Suppose  Detroit  were  the  only  town  in  America 
permitted  to  have  motor-cars  and  that  in  order  to 
travel  in  an  automobile  one  must  first  of  all  travel 
to  Detroit  and  there  confine  one's  gasolene  pil- 
grimages to  the  city  limits ;  suppose  San  Fran- 
cisco were  the  only  city  possessing  electric  lights 
and  all  others  must  use  gas,  candles,  lamps,  and 
what  not ;  suppose  Chicago  were  the  only  place 
where  coal  was  used  in  the  heating  of  private 
houses  and  that,  owing  to  some  fantastic  monopoly 
—  perhaps  not  more  fantastic  than  some  other 
monopolies  —  one  must  live  in  Chicago  if  one 
wished  to  have  one's  house  properly  heated  in  the 
winter.  How  long  would  Americans  endure  such 
a  state  of  things  ? 

Of  course  they  would  not  endure  it  at  all.  In- 
deed, many  could  not  endure  the  absence  of  physical 
luxuries  while  enduring  easily  the  absence  of  spir- 
itual necessities.  There  is  a  pretty  reason  for  this 
which  it  is  not  necessary  to  demonstrate. 

Dramatic  art  in  America  does  not  begin  to  touch 
the  national  life  as  closely  or  as  generally  as  does 
the  automobile;    it  has  not  affected,  it  does  not 

13 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

affect  individuals  and  families  in  their  habits  of 
thought  and  way  of  existence  as  the  motor-car  has 
succeeded  in  affecting  them.  Now  on  the  Conti- 
nent the  contrary  is  true ;  music  and  dramatic 
art  are  both  closer  to  the  national  life,  both  have 
a  wider  and  a  profounder  influence  on  the  daily 
thought  of  individuals  and  on  family  dinner-con- 
versation than  any  vehicle  for  transporting  the 
human  carcass.  I  am  not  pleading  for  the  abolish- 
ment of  the  automobile  in  America ;  I  am  sug- 
gesting that  there  ought  to  be  provided  in  addition 
more  opportunities  for  intellectual  and  spiritual 
growth. 

Suppose  some  Briton  writes  a  first-class  play ; 
I  suppose  a  Briton,  because  he  is  more  likely  to 
perform  such  a  public  service  than  an  American. 
Let  us  take  a  fine  example  —  What  Every  Woman 
Knows,  by  J.  M.  Barrie.  This  is  a  drama  full  of 
thought,  full  of  action,  full  of  charm  —  a  great  play. 
Every  city  and  town  in  the  United  States  ought 
to  have  the  opportunity  of  seeing  and  hearing  it, 
and  it  would  be  an  enormous  gain  if  we  could  all  see 
and  hear  it  at  the  same  time.  What  are  the  terms 
by  which  an  American  may  be  permitted  to  witness 
it  at  all  ?  It  is  produced  at  one  theatre  in  one  town 
by  one  company.  The  management  hopes  that  it 
will  run  there  at  least  a  year.  During  that  year  if 
any  person  in  Cleveland  or  Buffalo  or  St.  Louis  or 

14 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

Chicago  or  Salt  Lake  City  happens  to  want  to  hear 
this  drama  performed,  he  must  journey  to  New 
York,  and  succeed  in  the  endeavour  to  buy  a  seat 
at  the  particular  building  where  it  is  being  produced. 
After  the  lapse  of  a  year,  or  perhaps  two  or  three 
years,  it  may  be  taken  on  the  road,  and  it  may  or 
may  not  come  within  the  range  of  the  people  living 
in  the  towns  I  have  mentioned.  Americans  endure 
this  situation  in  dramatic  art  without  a  protest ; 
whereas  if  the  case  in  question  were  some  physical 
luxury,  they  would  not  endure  it  for  a  moment. 

In  some  European  countries,  when  a  new  play 
is  produced  in  one  of  the  large  cities  and  the  thing 
is  successful,  within  a  week  every  other  city  and 
many  of  the  small  towns  are  enjoying  the  same 
piece.  This  means  that  everybody  in  the  country 
is  talking  about  the  same  play  at  the  same  time  — 
discussing  it,  arguing  about  it,  reading  criticisms  of 
it  in  the  local  papers.  The  new  play  is  an  educa- 
tional force ;  it  is  really  a  part  of  the  national  life. 
Europeans  have  often  the  same  curiosity  in  dra- 
matic art  that  we  have  in  mechanical  inventions, 
devices  to  lower  expenses  and  increase  profits,  or 
a  new  system  of  dieting.  A  significant  play  in 
Europe  is  discussed  with  something  of  the  same 
general  eagerness  that  Americans  talked  about  the 
book  Eat  and  Grow  Thin.     It  is  a  national  sensation. 

Now  Americans  by  nature  are  not  one  whit  more 

IS 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

materialistic  than  Europeans.  We  simply  are  not 
informed  as  to  what  ought  to  be  the  condition  of 
dramatic  art.  I  am  certain  that  if  we  had  the 
opportunity  we  should  take  advantage  of  it. 
There  is  an  immense  amount  of  intellectual  and 
spiritual  hunger  in  America.  The  so-called  "prac- 
tical" and  shrewd  theatre-managers  who  are  the 
shepherds  of  our  souls  have  a  lower  opinion  of  our 
intelligence  than  the  facts  warrant.  Over  and 
over  again  they  decline  to.  give  us  good  music  and 
good  drama,  because  they  are  so  cocksure  we  do 
not  want  it.  When  John  Galsworthy's  new  play 
Justice  was  brought  to  America  it  was  offered  in 
turn  to  a  succession  of  dramatic  managers,  who 
contemptuously  rejected  it.  "The  American 
people  will  never  stand  for  that  high-brow  stuff." 
Finally  one  person  was  found  who  was  willing  to 
risk  the  venture.  To  the  amazement  of  the 
"practical"  men  the  play  turned  out  to  be  an 
enormous  financial  success ;  night  after  night  the 
house  was  crowded. 

That  the  American  people  desire  only  trashy 
plays  and  frothy  music  is  a  fallacy  almost  impossible 
to  uproot  from  the  managerial  mind.  In  the  midst 
of  the  hot  summer  of  1916  somebody  in  New  York 
had  the  amazing  audacity  to  hire  a  hall  and  an- 
nounce a  concert  made  up  exclusively  of  classical 
compositions.     The    thermometer    reached    about 

16 


THE  TWENTIETH   CENTURY  THEATRE 

one  hundred  degrees  that  evening,  yet  the  vast 
hall  was  packed  and  jammed  with  a  wildly  en- 
thusiastic audience.  Perhaps  it  is  a  mistake  to 
suppose,  first,  that  Americans  do  not  want  the  best 
in  art,  and  second,  that  their  minds  hibernate  in 
heat.  I  remember,  some  years  ago,  when  a  thor- 
oughly intellectual  dramatic  performance  was  given 
at  a  New  York  theatre,  the  interest  was  so  great 
that  hundreds  could  not  get  admission ;  and  the 
next  day  the  New  York  Sun,  devoting  a  column 
to  the  phenomenon,  suggested  to  theatrical  man- 
agers that  merely  as  a  matter  of  business  it  might 
be  well  to  consider  the  number  of  "high-brows" 
in  New  York  —  that  perhaps  it  was  not  always 
necessary  to  scale  every  production  down  to  a  level 
of  insipidity. 

It  is  evident  that  two  things  are  necessary  before 
we  shall  have  anything  like  a  diffusion  of  dramatic 
art  in  America.  There  must  he  a  stock  company  in 
every  city,  and  every  company  must  have  the  right 
to  produce  new  plays.  If  I  were  a  playwright  I  had 
rather  make  a  small  profit  from  each  of  many  per- 
formances on  a  single  night  than  a  large  profit  from 
one.  Although  the  stock  company  has  never  had  a 
fair  trial  on  a  universal  scale  in  America,  the  few 
illustrations  of  it  that  we  have  had  are  so  striking^ 
superior  to  the  star  system  that  the  case  for 
dramatic  art  is  already  proven.  In  the  eighties 
c  17 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

Augustin  Daly's  company  presented  both  Shake- 
spearean and  contemporary  dramas  in  a  manner  that 
fills  one's  memory  with  vivid  delight ;  in  the  nineties 
Daniel  Frohman's  Lyceum  company  was  incom- 
parably the  finest  example  of  dramatic  art  in 
America;  one  was  certain  of  a  good  production 
every  time.  I  regard  Daniel  Frohman  as  one  of 
our  most  high-minded  and  sincere  theatrical 
managers.  I  believe  he  has  been  actuated  always 
by  lofty  motives,  for  he  has  lent  dignity  to  every 
undertaking  associated  with  his  name.  I  suspect 
that  the  period  when  he  was  in  control  of  the  old 
Lyceum  Theatre  represents  some  of  the  happiest 
years  of  his  life. 

American  stock  companies,  however,  are  not 
merely  memories.  During  the  season  of  1915-1916 
Miss  Grace  George  —  a  charming  and  accompHshed 
actress  —  established  a  stock  company  in  New  York 
that  immediately  took  its  place  at  the  head  of 
metropolitan  theatres.  Their  presentation  of  Ber- 
nard Shaw's  Major  Barbara  was  so  near  impeccabil- 
ity that  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  call  it  absolutely 
satisfactory.  This  was  one  of  the  four  great  events 
of  the  season ;  the  other  three  being  Hauptmarm's 
Weavers  (in  English),  Galsworthy's  Justice,  and 
the  only  original  American  play  of  any  importance : 
The  Unchastened  Woman  by  Louis  K.  Anspacher. 
It  will  be  observed  that  the  proportion  of  excellent 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

native  productions  is  one  in  four ;  if  this  can  be  kept 
up  for  ten  years,  I  shall  be  satisfied.  America  is 
so  far  behind  Europe  in  dramatic  art  that  if  we 
can  write  one-quarter  of  the  plays  really  worth 
hearing,  we  shall  be  doing  well.  Mr.  Anspacher's 
comedy  would  be  a  credit  to  any  dramatist  in  the 
world. 

The  greatest  day  in  the  history  of  the  American 
stage  was  the  fifteenth  of  December,  1908,  the 
laying  of  the  corner-stone  of  the  New  Theatre. 
As  an  American  I  am  and  always  shall  be  unspeak- 
ably grateful  to  the  Founders.  They  showed  a 
generosity  and  a  courage  in  this  undertaking  rep- 
resentative of  the  highest  and  purest  patriotism. 
One  would  have  thought  that  such  a  vast  enterprise 
would  have  been  *'news";  would  have  been 
worthy  of  the  ablest  editorial  discussion.  Yet 
on  the  dawn  of  that  historic  day  not  one  notice 
of  the  event  did  I  find  in  any  New  York  news- 
paper; and  although  the  afternoon's  exercises 
were  graced  by  the  presence  of  the  Mayor,  Presi- 
dent Finley,  Augustus  Thomas,  John  Bigelow, 
Daniel  Frohman,  and  Geraldine  Farrar,  not  one 
editorial  could  I  discover  in  the  big  metropolitan 
journals  the  next  morning.  The  closeness  of  dra- 
matic art  in  America  to  the  national  life  may  be 
estimated  by  this  uniform  silence. 

I  am  well  aware  that  the  New  Theatre  turned  out 
19 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY   THEATRE 

to  be  a  financial  failure,  and  from  the  common  point 
of  view,  no  failure  can  be  worse  than  that.  But 
just  as  some  financial  successes  do  not  deeply 
benefit  the  public,  so  there  may  be  financial  failures 
that  leave  in  their  wake  permanent  blessings.  Dur- 
ing the  two  years  in  which  the  New  Theatre  existed 
America  had  the  greatest  stock  company  it  ever 
possessed ;  a  company  really  on  a  par  with  the 
Comidie  Franqaise.  It  was  a  company  that  could 
and  did  produce  contemporary  plays  so  totally 
unlike  as  Sister  Beatrice  and  Don,  and  produce 
both  in  a  manner  that  left  nothing  to  be  desired. 
It  was  a  company  that  —  after  the  ghastly  failure 
of  Antony  and  Cleopatra  —  gave  the  most  thrilling 
performances  of  Shakespeare  that  have  ever 
adorned  our  stage.  It  was  a  company  that  raised 
the  whole  level  of  dramatic  art  in  America ;  that 
has  made  Americans  more  dissatisfied  with  cheap 
and  sloppy  acting  than  they  used  to  be ;  that  has 
left  in  the  minds  of  many  Americans  a  determina- 
tion never  to  be  satisfied  until  we  have  something 
like  it  again.  No  wonder  that  many  individuals 
who  had  invested  in  theatrical  management  purely 
as  a  speculative  business  joined  in  a  wolfish  attack 
on  this  enterprise !  Their  sure  business  instinct 
told  them  of  a  mortal  peril ;  they  had  little  difiiculty 
in  recognising  a  powerful  foe.  For  if  Americans 
should  once  become  accustomed  to  a  high  standard 

20 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

of  company-acting,  as  Parisians  are,  what  would 
become  of  the  tenth-rate  stars  backed  by  the 
speculators  ? 

But  it  is  not  merely  in  a  general  way  that  the 
New  Theatre  left  its  impression.  Four  distinct 
and  specific  results  —  all  of  great  value  —  followed 
more  or  less  directly  from  its  influence.  Mr.  Win- 
throp  Ames  founded  the  Little  Theatre ;  and  while 
he  has  not  always  been  fortunate  in  his  pieces, 
the  performances  under  his  direction  are  better  than 
those  given  in  most  New  York  theatres,  and  the 
emphasis  is  all  on  team-play.  Mr.  Granville 
Barker  was  induced  to  come  to  New  York,  and 
present  under  his  own  training  and  direction 
Androcles  and  the  Lion,  The  Man  Who  Married 
a  Dumb  Wife,  The  Doctor's  Dilemma,  and  Mid- 
summer-Night's Dream.  Intelligent  people  may 
fairly  differ  as  to  the  value  of  all  of  Mr.  Barker's 
ideas ;  the  blessed  thing  is  that  he  has  ideas,  a  scarce 
article  in  the  American  theatre.  For  my  part  I 
think  the  excellence  of  the  acting  in  The  Doctor's 
Dilemma  was  a  revelation,  and  the  stage  setting  of 
The  Dumb  Wife  exceedingly  beautiful.  Third, 
Miss  Grace  George  was  emboldened  to  establish 
a  stock  company  in  New  York  that  should  present 
high-class  dramas  in  a  manner  worthy  of  the  best 
European  traditions;  and  fourthly,  Mr.  Louis 
Calvert,  literally  one  of  the  best  actors  in  the  world 

21 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

— who  made  a  profound  impression  in  every  role  that 
he  played  in  the  New  Theatre  —  has  determined 
to  make  America  his  home.  In  Grace  George's 
company  he  shone  with  real  distinction  in  Major 
Barbara^  and  in  conjunction  with  John  Corbin  — 
also  connected  with  the  New  Theatre  —  he  pro- 
duced in  the  spring  of  191 6  The  Tempest,  the  most 
memorable  Shakespearean  event  in  a  great  Shake- 
spearean year.  I  trace  all  four  of  these  immense 
advances  in  dramatic  art  directly  to  the  splendid 
experiment  of  the  New  Theatre.  I  hope  the 
founders  do  not  feel  that  their  efforts  were  wholly 
in  vain. 

When  I  say  that  the  only  chance  for  American 
dramatic  art  lies  in  the  general  adoption  of  the  stock 
company  and  the  universal  right  to  produce  new 
plays,  I  have  in  mind,  of  course,  real  stock  com- 
panies conducted  on  the  European  plan.  Mean- 
while in  many  cities  we  have  something  that  is 
worthy  of  high  praise,  for  it  is  a  step  —  only  a  step 
—  in  the  right  direction.  This  is  the  leasing  of  some 
theatre  by  a  manager,  who  hires  a  stock  company  at 
rather  low  salaries  and  produces  each  week  a  once- 
famous  play ;  with  so  small  a  price  for  seats  that 
practically  everybody  can  afford  to  attend  occa- 
sionally. An  excellent  illustration  of  this  system 
may  be  found  in  the  city  of  New  Haven,  where 
Mr.  Sylvester  Poll  bought  the  Hyperion  Theatre, 

22 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

and  now,  with  a  fairly  good  company,  gives  repre- 
sentative plays  with  a  weekly  change  of  bill.  The 
programme  is  sufficiently  varied  to  be  interesting ; 
and  Mr.  Poli  is  a  benefactor  in  presenting  such 
a  play  as  Augustus  Thomas's  masterpiece,  The 
Witching  Hour,  one  of  the  best  of  all  original 
American  dramas.  This  enterprise  has  been  enor- 
mously successful ;  the  theatre  is  packed  at  every 
performance  ;  hundreds  buy  a  weekly  subscription 
ticket,  retaining  the  same  seats  for  the  season ;  and 
it  would  be  difficult  to  over-estimate  the  amount 
of  pleasure  that  has  been  added  to  the  lives  of  many 
persons,  who  look  forward  to  the  subscription  day 
with  unfeigned  deHght.  Apart  from  the  pleasure 
of  witnessing  farces,  comedies,  and  melodramas, 
this  theatre  acts  as  a  kind  of  laboratory  for  students 
of  the  drama ;  for  by  specimens  it  really  represents 
the  history  of  the  American  stage  during  the  last 
twenty  years  and  affords  in  some  cases  the  oppor- 
tunity for  young  playwrights  to  produce  an  original 
piece. 

With  all  its  advantages  it  is  not,  however,  the 
kind  of  stock  company  I  have  in  mind.  This 
remark  would  be  absurdly  obvious  were  it  not  that 
those  who  defend  the  star  system  always  assume 
that  "stock"  means  just  this  and  nothing  more. 
Mr.  Poll's  company  is  forced  to  give  twelve  per- 
formances a  week ;  the  same  actors  appear  in  every 

23 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

production  and  the  leading  actors  always  take  the 
leading  roles.  This  entails  a  prodigious  amount  of 
work  for  rehearsals  in  addition  to  the  time  spent 
on  production  :  no  one  has  any  rest,  and  I  wonder 
when  the  actors  find  time  to  sleep. 

In  a  high-class  stock  company  there  are  no  stars ; 
he  who  takes  a  leading  role  one  night  does  not 
appear  at  all  the  next  night,  and  on  the  third  night 
may  have  an  infinitesimally  small  part.  The 
members  of  the  company  have  time  to  study,  to 
rest,  to  visit  other  theatres,  to  live  a  normal  life. 
Best  of  all,  they  are  enabled  to  be  really  citizens 
of  the  town  where  the  company  plays,  to  secure  a 
permanent  home,  send  their  children  to  the  public 
schools,  become  members  of  society,  with  all  the 
happiness  and  all  the  responsibility  thereof. 
Actors  and  actresses  by  nature  are  no  worse  than 
other  people ;  what  would  happen  to  many  of  our 
so-called  respectable  citizens  if  they  were  in  a  dif- 
ferent town  every  night,  with  no  responsibilities 
and  with  nothing  to  do  except  from  seven  to  eleven 
in  the  evening  ?  A  commercial  traveler  told  me 
he  faced  more  temptations  in  a  week  than  I  face  in 
a  year,  and  I  believe  him.  In  Europe  the  actors 
and  actresses  are  as  welcome  in  society  as  the 
college  professors;  one  actor  in  1904  told  me 
he  had  just  signed  a  contract  that  secured  him  a 
place  in  the  local  theatre  until  1919!    During  all 

24 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

these  years  he  has  a  home  with  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren ;  he  has  an  opportunity  to  advance  in  art 
by  constantly  studying  new  and  different  roles. 
I  could  not  help  comparing  his  case  with  that  of  an 
American  college  graduate  I  met  in  Detroit,  who  was 
"on  the  road"  in  Brewster's  Millions  and  had  acted 
the  same  minor  role  in  this  drama  for  three  years. 
Even  as  the  New  Theatre  was  the  most  impor- 
tant dramatic  event  in  America  in  the  twentieth 
century,  so  Miss  Horniman's  Manchester  Repertory 
Theatre,  founded  in  1908,  has  done  an  immense  ser- 
vice for  the  cause  of  good  drama  in  England.  Six 
years  ago,  being  in  London  at  the  height  of  the  dra- 
matic season,  it  seemed  to  me  a  significant  fact  that 
Miss  Horniman's  company,  from  the  provinces,  gave 
in  an  out-of-the-way  building,  and  at  considerably 
smaller  admission-prices,  examples  of  good  plays  well 
acted  that  surpassed  nearly  everything  at  the  regular 
theatres.  There  I  saw  Galsworthy's  Silver  Box, 
Arnold  Bennett's  What  the  Public  Wants,  and  other 
excellent  contemporary  pieces  adequately  produced. 
Miss  Horniman's  work  with  the  Abbey  Theatre,  and 
her  ten  fruitful  years  with  the  Manchester  company, 
have  made  her  one  of  the  most  important  leaders 
in  modern  theatrical  history.  There  is  simply  no 
comparison  between  the  results  she  has  achieved 
and  those  coming  from  the  conventional  star  system, 
long  run,  and  play-monopoly. 

25 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

If  half  of  what  I  hear  about  it  be  true,  the 
Artistic  Theatre  at  Moscow  under  the  directorship 
of  Mr.  Stanislavski  has  the  finest  stock  company  in 
the  world.  For  seven  years  there  was  an  annual 
deficit ;  then  up  to  the  Great  War,  it  more  than 
paid  its  expenses.  The  Director  regards  team- 
play  in  his  company  as  essential  as  we  know  it  to 
be  in  football ;  no  one  is  allowed  to  monopolise 
the  spotlight.  If  some  famous  star  wishes  to  be- 
come a  member  of  the  company,  he  is  admitted  only 
on  condition  that  he  consent  not  to  appear  in  public 
for  one  year,  for  it  takes  that  length  of  time  to  get 
the  star-poison  out  of  his  system.  He  rehearses 
with  the  company,  and  becomes  acquainted  with 
them  and  with  their  methods.  After  Chekhov's 
great  play  The  Cherry  Orchard  failed  in  Petrograd, 
it  was  produced  in  1904  at  the  Artistic  Theatre 
in  Moscow  with  such  overwhelming  success  that 
it  is  still  one  of  the  most  called-for  pieces.  Perhaps 
the  highest  compliment  this  company  received 
was  when  Maeterlinck,  after  writing  The  Blue 
Bird  J  had  it  translated  from  French  into  Russian, 
and  requested  that  the  first  night  of  its  performance 
should  be  at  the  Artistic  Theatre  in  Moscow. 
From  that  building  it  spread  all  over  Europe, 
and  became  one  of  the  favourite  plays  of  the  New 
Theatre  in  New  York. 

In  Stockholm  there  are  more  theatres  in  propor- 
26 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

tion  to  the  population  than  in  any  other  city  in  the 
world ;  and  in  a  week,  one  may  hear  classic  and 
modern  plays,  native  and  foreign. 

In  six  successive  days  in  Paris,  I  heard  performed 
two  tragedies  by  Racine,  one  tragedy  by  Victor 
Hugo,  one  comedy  by  Regnard,  one  comedy  by 
Goldoni,  one  drama  by  Dumas,  one  comedy  by 
Augier,  one  contemporary  piece  by  Brieux,  and 
two  comedies  by  MoUere !  At  one  of  the  frequent 
classic  matinees,  the  best  seats  in  the  house  were 
sold  for  fifty  cents,  a  distinguished  literary  man 
gave  a  short  lecture  preliminary  to  the  representa- 
tion, and  the  theatre  was  packed  with  high  school 
boys  and  girls,  nearly  all  of  whom  had  a  copy  of 
the  text  in  their  hands,  and  made  notes  on  the 
margin.  Think  of  the  educational  value  of  such  an 
institution,  if  we  could  combine  it  with  school  educa- 
tion in  our  country  !  If  the  teacher  could  say  to  the 
pupils,  "  This  week  we  are  studying  Twelfth  Night ;  on 
Thursday  afternoon  the  local  stock  company  will  give 
a  performance  of  this  play.  I  advise  you  all  to  attend, 
and  on  Friday  we  shall  discuss  it  in  the  class." 

Outside  of  New  York  City  —  the  only  town  where 
the  drama  can  be  studied  in  America  —  the  condi- 
tions of  theatrical  art  seem  to  need  improvement. 
I  remember  not  so  very  long  ago  reading  at  the 
head  of  the  dramatic  column  in  a  newspaper  pub- 
lished in  Massachusetts : 

27 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

CHOICE  WEEK  IN  HOLYOKE 

Holyoke  Opera  House  to  Hear  Some  of  Best  Independent 
Productions  —  Attractions  of  the  Week 

Holyoke  Opera  House 

Monday,  Tuesday,  and  Wednesday  evenings,  —  matinees 
daily  — 
Washington  Society  Girls'  Extravaganza  Company 

Empire  Theatre 

Monday,  Tuesday,  and  Wednesday  evenings  — 

The  Two  Johns 
Thursday,    Friday,   and    Saturday    evenings,  —  matinees 
daily  — 

High  Rollers  Extravaganza  Company 

Now  if  this  is  a  choice  week  in  Holyoke,  what  do 
you  suppose  is  the  local  conception  of  an  average 
sennight  ? 

But  let  us  leave  the  smaller  places,  and  travel 
westward.  I  will  give  specimen  days  all  within 
the  last  few  years.  In  Utica,  I  observed  there  was 
to  be  one  vaudeville  and  one  burlesque;  in  Syra- 
cuse, The  Globe  Trotters,  and  two  vaudevilles;  in 
the  splendid  city  of  Cleveland,  only  one  play,  with 
the  significant  title,  Nobody  Home ;  and  in  Detroit, 
a  city  that  prides  itself  on  its  prodigious  growth, 
I  found  in  the  autumn  the  following  legend  at  the 
head  of  theatrical  news: 

28 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

REGULAR  SEASON  IS  USHERED   IN 

With  one  of  the  regular  theatres  throwing  its  doors  open 
to-morrow  night,  and  two  others,  including  a  newcomer, 
announcing  their  initial  attractions,  the  local  theatrical 
season  can  be  said  to  be  fairly  with  us.  A  musical  comedy 
new  to  Detroit,  a  farce  comedy  pleasantly  remembered, 
because  of  a  previous  presentation,  a  series  of  traveltalks 
and  vaudeville  of  a  varied  nature  are  noted  in  the  following 
list: 

Detroit  —  "Dew  Drop  Inn." 

Gakrick  —  Lyman  Howe's  Traveltalks. 

Lyceum  —  "Nearly  Married." 

Temple  —  Conroy  and  LeMaitre. 

Orpheum  —  Gus  Hombrook's  Wild  West  Show. 

Miles  —  "The  Unfair  Sex." 

Gayety  —  Sam  Howe's  Big  Show. 

Cadillac  —  "The  Lady  Buccaneers." 

I  heard  no  protest  from  anyone  in  Detroit,  but  I 
do  not  believe  that  everybody  in  that  fine  city  w^as 
really  satisfied  with  the  "opening"  of  the  regular 
season. 

Let  us  proceed  to  Chicago : 

THE  WEEK'S  PLAYBILLS 

CoRT — "Up  Stairs  and  Down,"  a  social  satire  by  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Hatton,  with  Fred  Tiden,  Mary  Servoss,  Frances 
Ring,  Leo  Carillo,  Ethel  Stanard,  Orlando  Daly,  and 
others.     To-night. 

La  Salle  — "Oh,  Boy!" 
29 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

Garrick  —  "You're  in  Love." 

Olympic  —  Last  week  of  Fiske  O'Hara  in  "The  Man 

from  Wicklow."    Next  Sunday — "Parlor,  Bedroom,  and 

Bath." 

Palace  —  Final  week  of  "The  Show  of  Wonders." 
Grand  —  Nearing  the  end  of  "Turn  to  the  Right." 
Illinois  —  William  Court enay  and  Thomas  A.  Wise  in 

"Pals  First,"  a  nice  crook  play. 

Powers'  —  "Oh,  So  Happy!"  a  musical  comedy. 
Majestic  —  Vaudeville,  including  Nan  Halperin,  Leona 

Le  Mar,  Collins  and  Hart,  Billie  Montgomery,  and  George 

Perry,  the  Pearl  of  Hawaii,  and  others. 

Wilson  Avenue  —  "Seven  Keys  to  Baldpate." 
Colonial  —  Vaudeville,  with  "The  Smart  Shop." 
RiALTO  —  Vaudeville,  with  Richard  the  Great,  a  trained 

monkey. 

McVicker's  —  Vaudeville,     with     "The     Fascinating 

FUrts." 

National  —  "The  Marriage  Question." 

Going  south  to  one  of  the  most  progressive  towns 
in  America,  Birmingham,  Alabama,  I  discovered 
the  following  theatrical  refreshment : 

AT  THE  THEATRES 

Lyric  —  Vaudeville.  Matinee  at  3  o'clock.  Night 
performances  at  7 :  30  and  9  o'clock. 

Bijou  —  Dramatic  success,  "A  Little  Girl  in  a  Big 
City."    Matinee  at  2 :  30.    Night  performance  at  8 :  30. 

Majestic  —  Musical  comedy,  "Honeymoon  Girls,"  and 
pictures. 

30 


THE  TWENTIETH   CENTURY  THEATRE 

Ah,  but  in  saying  that  New  York  was  the  only 
town  where  it  is  possible  to  study  the  drama,  have 
I  not  made  one  fatal  omission?  Have  I  not  for- 
gotten Boston  ?  I  remember  reading  in  a  European 
novel  that  Boston  is  "the  centre  of  American 
intelHgence."  It  is  certainly  true  that  the  oppor- 
tunities to  hear  music  and  to  regard  pictures  are 
abundant  and  adequate ;  how  about  the  drama  ? 

NEXT  WEEK 

Boston  Opera  House  —  Andrew  Mack  in  "Molly 
Dear,"  first  time. 

Copley  —  "The  Man  Who  Stayed  at  Home." 

Colonial  —  "Ziegfeld  Follies"  19 17. 

Globe  —  "The  Wolf." 

HoLLis  Street  —  Ruth  Chatterton  in  "Come  Out  of 
the  Kitchen." 

Majestic  —  "Seven  Days'  Leave." 

Park  Square  —  "  Captain  Kidd,  Jr.,"  first  time. 

Plymouth  —  "Oh,  Boy." 

Shubert  —  "The  Passing  Show  of  19 17." 

Tremont  —  "Turn  to  the  Right." 

Wilbur  —  "Love  o'  Mike,"  with  George  Hassell. 

B.  F.  Keith's  —  Conroy  and  La  Maire,  etc. 

Orpheum  —  Raymond  and  Caverly,  etc. 

Gayety—  "The  Behman  Show." 

Casino  —  The  New  Bon  Ton  Girls. 

Howard  —  The  Innocent  Maids  Co. 

Boston  —  Jane  Cowl  in  "The  Spreading  Dawn,"  etc. 

Park  —  Mme.  Petrova  in  "The  Spreading  Dawn,"  etc. 

31 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

Gordon's  Olympia  —  Douglas  Fairbanks  in  "The  Man 
from  Painted  Post,"  etc. 

ScoLLAY  Square  Olympia  —  Charlie  Chaplin  in  "The 
Adventure,"  etc. 

Fenway  -  George  Walsh  in  "The  Yankee  Way,"  etc. 

Exeter  Street  —  Jack  Pickford  and  Louise  Huff  in 
"The  Ghost  House,"  etc. 

BowDOiN  Square  —  "The  Spy,"  with  Dustin  Famum, 
etc. 

Modern  —  Marguerite  Clark  in  "Bab's  Burglar,"  etc. 

Lancaster  —  George  Walsh  in  "The  Yankee  Way,"  etc. 

St.  James  —  Frescott,  etc. 

In  New  York,  while  there  are  no  such  oppor- 
tunities to  hear  ancient  and  contemporary  drama 
as  there  are  in  Continental  cities,  we  find  the  only 
place  in  America  where  new  plays  may  be  observed, 
and  the  standard  of  excellence  is  much  higher 
than  it  was  twenty  years  ago.  American  taste  in 
general  may  be  estimated  by  the  following  table, 
which  shows  the  percentage  for  November,  1899, 
in  the  theatres  of  the  following  representative  cities  : 
New  York,  Boston,  Philadelphia,  Chicago,  Cleve- 
land, St.  Louis,  Baltimore,  and  Washington : 

Tragedy  and  Melodrama 34 

Comedy 23 

Farce 12 

Light  Opera 10 

Grand  Opera 6 

Vaudeville,  Burlesque,  etc 15 

32 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

It  must  be  remembered  that  my  classification  is 
somewhat  arbitrary,  and  that  critics  would  never 
be  unanimous  in  designating  certain  plays  as 
comedies,  others  as  farces,  others  as  melodramas. 
The  New  York  Tribune,  the  only  newspaper  that 
attempts  any  classification  in  its  weekly  review, 
would  not  put  on  every  play  the  same  label  as 
mine.  Yet  on  the  majority  we  should  agree.  It 
is  clear  that  Hamlet  is  a  tragedy,  The  Thirteenth 
Chair  a  melodrama,  A  Kiss  for  Cinderella  a  comedy, 
and  Excuse  Me  a  farce.  Under  the  title  Light 
Opera  I  am  forced  to  include  the  so-called  musical 
comedies,  and  under  vaudeville  all  variety  enter- 
tainments and  music-hall  shows. 

Between  the  first  of  October  and  the  first  of  May 
on  any  week-day  night  in  New  York  the  theatre- 
goer has  his  choice  among  about  forty  performances. 
The  table  on  the  following  page  summarises  at  a 
glance  the  metropolitan  theatres  during  the  last 
eighteen  years. 

Several  interesting  conclusions  may  be  drawn 
from  this  table.  In  the  early  years  of  the  century 
the  dying  melodrama  had  a  false  semblance  of  life. 
This  was  caused,  I  think,  by  the  rage  for  pseudo- 
historical  romances  in  prose  fiction,  many  of  which 
were  transferred  to  the  stage,  as  we  shall  see  later, 
when  we  consider  the  dramatised  novel.  But  the 
public  sense  of  humour  eventually  got  the  best 
D  33 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 


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34 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

both  of  the  dramatised  romance  and  stage  melo- 
drama, especially  among  metropolitan  audiences, 
as  was  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  elaborate  revival 
in  the  spring  of  191 1  of  The  Lights  of  London 
was  greeted  by  New  York  spectators  with  unre- 
strained guffaws  and  ironical  applause.  Its  place 
was  taken  by  a  hybrid  called  melodramatic  farce 
or  farcical  melodrama,  of  which  Officer  666  is  a 
good  specimen.  But  the  knock-out  blow  to  both 
pure  melodrama  and  pure  farce  was  given  by  the 
moving  pictures,  for  a  glance  at  the  table  will 
show  that  each  of  these  forms  went  down  and  out 
at  approximately  the  same  time.  And  the  reason 
is  clear;  why  should  one  pay  two  dollars  to  see 
No  Wedding  Bells  for  Her  when  one  can  see  it  in 
the  movies  for  a  dime?  Why  should  one  pay 
two  dollars  to  see  a  clown  hit  a  United  States 
Senator  in  the  face  with  a  wedge  of  custard  pie, 
when  one  can  see  Charlie  Chaplin  do  it  for  ten 
cents  ? 

Indeed  the  movies  have  not  only  had  an  ex- 
tinguishing effect  on  melodrama  and  farce,  they 
have  severely  wounded  music  hall  shows,  and  now 
we  often  see  the  vaudeville  unite  itself  with  the 
pictures. 

The  movie  habit  is  a  bad  habit.  I  think  I  see 
its  effect  on  many  young  people  to-day,  who  are 
more  loose-lipped  than  formerly.     In  conversation, 

35 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

they  seem  to  endeavour  to  turn  their  mouths  inside 
out,  and  I  ascribe  this  unpleasant  fashion  to  the 
movie  habit  —  they  have  been  watching  the  silent 
actors  and  actresses  ''registering"  emotion. 

Kind  gentlemen,  your  pains  are  registered 
Where  every  day  I  turn  the  leaf  to  read  them. 

But  the  movie  habit  is  not  the  fault  of  the  movies, 
but  of  the  people  who  attend  too  frequently  — 
and  even  so  it  is  better  than  the  saloon  habit,  which 
it  has  done  much  to  replace.  The  movies  have 
had  this  excellent  effect  on  the  legitimate  theatre. 
They  have  jacked  it  up.  It  is  vain  for  the  theatre 
to  contend  with  the  movies  by  the  weapons  of 
mere  entertainment ;  there  the  movies  make  a 
stronger  appeal,  and  at  one-twentieth  the  price. 
No,  if  the  theatre  is  to  hold  any  place  at  all,  it 
must  furnish  something  in  addition  to  mere  enter- 
tainment; it  must  have  ideas,  cerebration,  clever 
or  powerful  dialogue.  The  movies,  then,  have 
forced  the  theatre  to  a  higher  plane  of  art,  and  I 
am  grateful  for  the  service  rendered. 

The  rise  of  Comedy,  as  exhibited  in  the  table, 
is  highly  significant.  It  is  the  most  encouraging 
single  fact  in  the  twentieth  century  theatre.  It 
should  always  lead,  as  it  does  now  in  New  York, 
other  forms  of  dramatic  art,  for  Comedy  is  the 
reflection  and  the  interpretation  of  life.     That  way 

36 


THE  TWENTIETH   CENTURY  THEATRE 

lies  the  hope  of  the  theatre.  Would  that  the 
modern  comedy  could  imitate  the  movies  in  giving 
every  town  in  the  country  an  opportunity  to  see 
the  same  play  at  the  same  time !  The  effect  of 
such  moving  pictures  as  The  Birth  of  a  Nation  and 
Les  Miserahles  is  prodigiously  heightened  by  the 
fact  that  the  whole  country  is  seeing  them  during 
the  same  season.  San  Francisco,  Chicago,  New 
Orleans,  and  New  York  eagerly  discuss  the  same 
moving  picture.  As  this  consummation  for  modern 
comedy  is  the  one  above  all  others  devoutly  to  be 
wished,  it  is  pleasant  to  record  the  one  and  only 
attempt  at  realisation  that  I  know.  When  Mr. 
Robert  Housum,  the  author  of  the  best  original 
American  comedy  during  the  autumn  of  191 7  — 
I  mean  The  Gipsy  Trail  —  mounted  it  in  New  York 
under  the  skilful  direction  of  Arthur  Hopkins,  it 
was  also  produced  during  the  same  week  in  Chicago ; 
so  that  for  the  first  time  in  human  history,  two 
American  cities  were  beholding  a  new  comedy  at 
the  same  moment. 

We  have  to  a  large  extent  got  rid  of  cheap  melo- 
drama and  cheap  farce  —  both  excellent  forms  of 
entertainment,  if  taken  in  moderation,  but  not 
conducive  to  theatrical  art.  Vaudeville  no  longer 
outranks  Comedy  as  it  did  in  the  early  years  of 
the  century.  It  will  never  die,  and  it  ought  not 
to.      It  is  an   excellent   form   of  entertainment. 

37 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

The  ancient  soprano  —  a  sentimental  ruin  — 
the  exotic  gymnasts  with  their  family  tree  —  the 
trained  cats  —  the  juggler  who  tosses  a  silver 
dollar  in  the  air  and  catches  it  in  his  eye  —  these 
are  often  delightful  to  witness,  and  the  blessed 
thing  about  the  whole  show  is  this :  that  if  any 
feature  is  overpoweringly  dull  or  inane,  and  some 
are  both  —  we  know  that  it  cannot  last  long.  It 
must  give  way  to  something  better.  Occasionally 
too,  the  vaudeville  contains  some  exhibition  of  true 
art.  I  shall  never  forget  the  two  birdmen,  with 
their  ornithological  love-duet  dialogue,  that  I  saw 
at  the  Hippodrome  a  year  ago.  For  that  matter, 
Charles  Dilhngham's  Hippodrome  is  a  public 
benefaction. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  vaudeville-movie 
combination  has  an  immense  hold  on  the  popular 
heart,  although  outside  of  New  York  the  vaudeville 
portion  seems  to  me  almost  incredibly  inane,  an 
insult  to  the  intelligence  of  humanity.  I  happened 
to  be  for  an  hour  in  a  New  England  city,  during  the 
month  of  October,  191 7,  because  of  bad  train  con- 
nections. I  therefore  paid  my  dime  and  entered  a 
huge  auditorium.  The  day  was  Monday,  the 
hour  was  three,  and  the  weather  ideally  beautiful. 
Every  seat  in  the  huge  room  and  galleries  was 
occupied,  and  I  was  one  of  many  forced  to  stand. 
I  did  not  stand  long,  for  the  part  of  the  show  that 

38 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

I  witnessed  —  two  persons  trying  to  be  funny  — 
filled  me  with  the  thickest  gloom.  What  impressed 
me  was  the  fact  that  so  many  hundreds  of  able- 
bodied  men  and  women,  in  the  middle  of  a  beautiful 
Monday  afternoon,  had  nothing  better  to  occupy 
their  attention  than  this. 

On  the  Continent,  good  vaudeville  flourishes 
side  by  side  with  legitimate  drama,  and  the  two 
are  never  confused  in  the  public  mind.  American 
travellers  carry  away  pleasant  memories  of  the 
music  halls,  where  the  parquet  floor  is  covered  with 
tables,  and  a  good-natured  crowd  eat,  drink,  and 
smoke  while  the  performance  makes  its  devious, 
disconnected,  and  merry  march.  But  the  theatres 
know  well  enough  that  if  they  are  to  maintain  their 
popularity  against  this  hydra-headed  rival,  they 
must  make  a  quite  different  appeal.  They  must 
supply  the  audiences  not  only  with  an  interesting 
spectacle,  but  with  food  for  actual  mental  fletcher- 
ising;  their  plays  must  have,  not  necessarily  in- 
struction, but  ideas.  In  Europe  the  vaudeville 
has  helped  the  theatre  as  the  movies  have  helped 
it  in  America. 

The  sudden  rise  of  musical  comedy  in  1903  is  a 
curious  fact  and  the  practical  disappearance  of 
comic  opera  on  the  American  stage  is  a  public 
misfortune.  By  comic  opera  I  mean  of  course 
the  works  of  Gilbert  and  Sullivan,  and  such  light 

39 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

masterpieces  as  Erminie,  Robin  Hood,  and  The 
Serenade.  These  passed  away  with  the  dying 
century ;  a  glance  at  the  table  shows  how  few  were 
the  "musical  shows"  in  1900,  1901,  and  1902. 
Then  appeared  an  upstart  crow,  beautified  with  the 
feathers  of  the  old  light  opera  and  resembling  it  as 
the  song  of  the  crow  resembles  that  of  the  nightin- 
gale. This  dramatic  freak  was  called  "musical 
comedy,"  a  curiously  infelicitous  appellation,  as  it 
usually  lacked  both  music  and  humour.  Within 
the  last  two  years,  indeed,  the  managers  are  more 
frank,  for  this  kind  of  entertainment  is  now  fre- 
quently advertised  as  "Girl  and  music  show." 
Suddenly  it  reached  a  climax  in  1903,  and  Like  ping- 
pong,  was  all  the  rage ;  then  it  began  to  droop, 
and  might  have  faded  altogether  were  it  not  for 
the  war.  We  are  sharing  in  this  respect  the  expe- 
rience of  England,  for  it  is  believed  that  both  sol- 
diers and  civilians,  as  a  reaction  and  refuge  from 
the  general  sorrow,  demand  something  "snappy." 
Everyone  to  his  taste ;  for  my  part  I  find  in  time  of 
war  such  a  masterpiece  as  J.  M.  Barrie's  The  Old 
Lady  Shows  Her  Medals  more  restorative  than 
vulgar  inanity.  Is  it  not  only  better,  but  more 
refreshing,  to  devote  what  time  we  have  free  from 
war-work  to  great  books,  great  music,  great  plays 
rather  than  to  jarring  idiocies  ?  At  a  splendid  per- 
formance of  the  Ninth  Symphony  in  New  York  in 

40 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

1918,  it  was  a  pleasure  to  me  to  see  so  many  soldiers 
in  the  audience.  It  all  depends,  of  course,  on  what 
you  call  depressing.  To  me  a  superb  tragedy 
adequately  acted  is  not  depressing ;  it  is  nobly 
exhilarating.  There  is  nothing  so  depressing  as 
stupidity.  The  last  time  I  went  to  a  musical 
comedy  I  went  away  steeped  in  gloom.  I  felt  as 
if  a  misfortune  had  happened  to  me,  and  it  had. 

Perhaps  the  only  way  to  destroy  musical  comedy 
is  to  re\'ive  comic  opera.  There  are  thousands  of 
theatre-goers  hungry  for  it.  When  The  Mikado 
was  revived  in  New  York  in  1910,  at  the  end  of  the 
theatrical  season,  the  pubHc  interest  was  prodigious ; 
it  had  been  the  intention  to  give  only  a  few  per- 
formances, but  the  demand  was  so  keen  and  con- 
stant that  The  Mikado  ran  its  triumphant  course 
deep  into  the  sultry  summer.  The  same  success 
greeted  Pinafore  in  191 1.  In  1918,  Victor  Herbert, 
who  is  more  capable  than  any  one  else  in  America 
of  writing  Hght  opera,  produced  Eileen  ;  a  piece  full 
of  lovely  melodies,  real  humour  and  charm.  After 
gazing  for  many  years  at  the  American  stage  — 
bare,  ruined  choirs,  where  late  the  sweet  bird  sang  — 
Eileen  was  as  welcome  as  a  friendly  face  in  a  distant 
desert. 


41 


n 

THE  DECAY  OF  EVIL  TENDENCIES 

Some  evil  tendencies  checked  —  the  lust  for  scenery  —  later 
improvements  —  Granville  Barker  —  Gordon  Craig  —  the  the- 
atrical trust  —  rise  of  prices  for  theatre  seats  —  speculators  — 
F.  Ziegfeld,  Jr.  —  dramatisation  of  popular  novels  —  its  effect 
on  dramatic  art  —  its  impulse  to  melodrama  —  prize-fighters 
on  the  stage  —  growth  of  original  American  comedy  —  the  ex- 
portation of  American  plays  —  proper  hour  for  beginning  per- 
formances —  concentration. 

Musical  comedy  is  just  now  the  most  dangerous 
foe  of  dramatic  art  in  both  England  and  America ; 
but  I  cannot  beHeve  that  it  has  any  element  of 
permanence,  and  I  think  I  shall  outlive  it.  It  is 
encouraging  to  remember  that  at  the  beginning  of 
the  twentieth  century  there  were  a  number  of 
evil  tendencies  seriously  threatening  the  theatre 
which  died  a  natural  death.  One  of  these  was  the 
rivalry  among  producers  to  satisfy  and  to  stimu- 
late the  lust  of  the  eye.  In  1902  a  spectator  of 
The  Darling  of  the  Gods  declared  that  he  saw  more 
scenery  in  five  minutes  than  Shakespeare  saw  in 
his  whole  life.  Just  as  rival  railways,  v/hose  limited 
trains  made  the  same  time  and  charged  the  same 

42 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

price,  felt  compelled  to  compete  in  the  luxury  of 
dining  and  observation  cars,  so  various  theatres 
began  to  compete  in  gorgeous  spectacular  effects. 
A  profusion  of  splendid  scenery  not  only  fails  to 
help  the  imagination,  it  debases  it.  The  love  of 
mere  scenic  effect  has  in  reality  no  rational  con- 
nexion with  true  drama.  It  bears  about  the 
same  relation  to  legitimate  drama  as  a  kaleidoscope 
bears  to  a  telescope.  The  Puritans  worshipped 
God  in  a  cold,  bare  rectangular  room,  not  because 
they  lacked  imagination,  but  because  their  imagi- 
nation was  so  boldly  and  pictorially  vivid,  that  in 
this  barren  space  they  saw  the  heavens  opened, 
and  the  revelation  of  celestial  glory.  Whatever 
Elizabethan  audiences  lacked,  they  did  not  lack 
imagination.  It  would  be  foolish  to  insist  on  an 
empty  stage ;  but  I  had  rather  have  that  than  one 
stuffed  with  gaudy  scenery.  This  sudden  rage 
for  bogus  splendour  died  away ;  its  place  has  been 
taken  with  adequate  stage  settings. 

Most  present-day  theatre-goers  can  remember 
when  a  living-room  on  the  stage  had  no  ceiling, 
and  when  the  doors  —  covered  along  the  edge  with 
dirty  marks  left  there  by  scene-shifters  —  swung 
back  and  forth  after  an  exit  like  the  pendulum 
of  a  clock  running  down.  How  seldom  did  we 
see  on  the  stage  a  practicable  door,  that  shut  with 
a  real  click !    After  the  spasm  for  splendour  passed, 

43 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY   THEATRE 

adequate  scenery  took  its  place.  Now  we  have 
ceilings,  windows,  and  doors  that  do  not  distract 
attention  from  the  play  by  violating  verisimilitude ; 
and  it  may  be  that  some  day  we  shall  behold  an 
open-air  scene  where  the  sky  has  no  wrinkles. 
Scenic  effects,  like  clothes,  should  be  unobtrusive. 

And,  while  dressing  the  stage  so  that  the  scenery 
shall  be  subordinate  to  the  dram.a  and  at  the  same 
time  shall  assist  in  interpreting  it,  it  is  quite 
possible  to  have  exquisite  beauty  without  a  sug- 
gestion of  tawdry  ornamentation.  Granville  Bark- 
er's famous  visit  to  New  York  stimulated  the 
American  theatre  in  many  directions,  all  good. 
His  staging  of  the  second  act  of  The  Doctor^s  Di- 
lemma was  an  ideal  illustration  of  what  I  mean  by 
adequate  scenery  full  of  beauty ;  and  no  one  who 
saw  The  Man  who  Married  a  Dumb  Wife  will  ever 
forget  the  setting  for  that  comedy.  It  was  a  work 
of  flawless  art,  and  in  my  memory  will  be  a  joy 
forever. 

In  all  that  has  to  do  with  the  presentation  of 
plays,  revolutionary  and  interesting  ideas  have 
been  originated  by  Gordon  Craig.  He  thoroughly 
mastered  the  old  technique  before  developing  some- 
thing different.  His  first  appearance  as  an  actor 
was  in  1889,  at  the  Lyceum  Theatre  in  London, 
under  the  direction  of  Henry  Irving.  After  eight 
years  of  practical  histrionic  experience,  he  began 

44 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY   THEATRE 

the  study  of  the  art  of  the  theatre,  and  his  school 
in  Florence  attracted  the  attention  of  the  world. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  support  all  of  his  schemes, 
some  of  which  seem  lilce  vagaries,  to  record  gratitude 
to  him  for  his  aims.  John  Cournos,  in  an  article 
in  Poetry  and  Drama,  September,  191 3,  sums  up 
in  one  paragraph  the  essence  of  Mr.  Craig's  phi- 
losophy. "The  function  of  the  theatre,  as  he 
comprehends  it,  is  not  to  present  the  superficial 
semblances  of  life,  but  the  soul  of  life ;  not  Natural- 
ism, but  suggestion ;  not  representation,  but  in- 
terpretation ;  not  dialogue,  but  action ;  not  scen- 
ery, but  atmosphere ;   not  ideas,  but  visions." 

Whether  Mr.  Craig's  schemes  should  be  definitely 
adopted  or  not,  is  beside  the  point ;  the  point  is 
that  his  ideas  are  bound  to  elevate  both  the  stage 
and  the  audience. 

In  order  to  show  how  we  have  progressed  away 
from  mere  indiscriminate  stage  splendour  since 
the  year  1900,  I  will  quote  a  few  lines  from  a 
thoughtful  review  of  the  decline  of  the  theatre 
written  by  Mr.  A.  C.  Wheeler  in  Harper^ s  Weekly 
at  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century. 

Goethe  one  day,  after  witnessing  a  poor  play  —  it  was 
probably  one  of  Kotzebue's  —  went  home  and  set  down 
these  words:  "The  ordinary  man  is  content  to  see  some- 
thing going  on." 

That  can  hardly  be  said  now  of  the  ordinary  man  at  the 

45 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

theatre.  He  must  see  a  great  many  things  going  on  simul- 
taneously, and  there  is  some  excuse  for  it  in  the  fact  that  a 
great  many  more  things  are  going  on  at  the  end  than  were 
going  on  at  the  beginning  of  the  century. 

Some  recognition  of  that  fact  is  necessary  in  appraising 
the  theatre  and  in  attempting  to  measure  the  progress  of 
the  amusement-going  man  through  the  hundred  years.  For 
it  is  on  the  side  of  his  apprehensions  that  the  theatrical 
appeal  is  apparent,  and  its  appeals  to-day  are  more  vari- 
ous and  kinetoscopic  than  ever  before.  There  is  so  much 
going  on  that  calls  upon  his  cognitions  without  disturbing 
his  reflection  that  his  visual  faculty  has  grown  out  of  all 
proportion  to  his  other  senses.  The  theatre,  instead  of 
purging  and  disciplining  his  eye,  has  simply  pampered  and 
prostituted  it.  He  does  not  hear  as  well  and  as  patiently 
as  he  did  one  hundred  years  ago.  The  playhouse,  which 
from  Garrick's  time  insisted  on  being  a  mirror,  has  quad- 
rupled the  facets  on  its  reflecting  surface,  and  to  the  eye  of 
our  time  it  is  the  most  vivid,  the  most  alluring,  and  the  most 
multiform  of  every  appeal  made  to  the  sense. 

To-day  we  hear  comparatively  little  about  the 
Theatrical  Trust  —  a  subject  hotly  discussed  in 
and  out  of  the  courts  at  the  beginning  of  the  cen- 
tury. Some  of  its  worst  evils  have  disappeared. 
The  organisation  of  the  theatres  into  an  iron-clad 
trust  was  bad  chiefly  because  —  whatever  may  be 
the  situation  in  purely  commercial  activities  —  in 
art  there  is  one  principle  absolutely  essential  — 
Liberty.  The  trust  then  interfered  with  the 
liberty  of  the  playwright,  the  actor,  and  the  local 

46 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

manager.  It  was  as  though  a  sculptor  should 
decide  to  make  a  statue  of  Mars,  only  to  discover 
that  a  rich  merchant  had  bought  up  all  the  marble 

—  he  must  make  statues  dictated  by  the  art-igno- 
rant magnate,  or  make  no  statues  at  all.  There 
is  more  liberty  now  than  there  was  eighteen  years 
ago,  and  the  good  qualities  of  organisation  have 
developed  more  than  the  bad. 

During  the  last  ten  years  the  prices  of  nearly 
everything  wanted  by  human  beings  have  gone 
up   with   appalling   velocity.     Nearly   everything 

—  not  everything.  It  is  notable  that  while  we 
have  to  pay  more  for  almost  every  necessary  or 
desirable  object  on  earth  than  we  did  ten  years 
ago,  the  price  of  a  theatre-ticket  remains  the  same. 
The  upward  tendency  received  a  check,  and  the 
reasons  for  it  are  interesting.  When  I  was  an 
imdergraduate  in  New  Haven,  the  best  seats  in 
the  theatre  ordinarily  cost  one  dollar ;  when  Ed- 
win Booth  appeared,  they  rose  to  a  dollar  and  a 
half.  In  a  few  years,  the  standard  price  for  any 
play  became  a  dollar  and  a  half ;  and  before  the 
end  of  the  nineteenth  century,  it  rose  to  two 
dollars.  Then  when  Henry  Irving  or  Sarah  Bern- 
hardt arrived,  they  were  able  to  charge  three  dol- 
lars. Beerbohm  Tree  —  a  poor  actor  —  made  his 
first  appearance  in  New  York  as  Hamlet ;  I  still 
regret  the  three  dollars  I  was  forced  to  pay.    I 

47 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

once  gave  —  God  forgive  me  for  it !  —  five  dollars 
to  see  an  all-star  cast  in  The  Rivals,  Such  inci- 
dents made  me  firmly  believe  that  by  1918  the 
fixed  price  for  an  ordinary  theatrical  entertainment 
would  be  three  or  four  dollars.  I  was  mistaken. 
The  price  is  what  it  was  twenty  years  ago  —  two 
dollars  —  and  in  many  cases  has  relapsed  to  a 
dollar  and  a  half.  If  theatre-seats  had  climbed 
like  other  commodities,  we  should  now  be  paying 
five  or  six  dollars  a  chair.  Indeed,  after  America's 
entrance  into  the  war,  a  number  of  managers 
attempted  to  force  the  price  to  two  dollars  and  a 
half.  They  were  quickly  obliged  to  haul  in  their 
horns. 

All  speculation  in  theatre-seats  is  a  bad  thing; 
there  should  be  one  standard  price  and  seats  should 
be  obtainable  only  at  the  box-office,  either  by  the 
purchaser  orally,  or  by  a  bank  cheque  through  the 
post.  As  it  is  now,  those  who  go  to  the  box 
office  or  send  a  cheque  thither,  even  for  a  per- 
formance two  weeks  in  advance,  often  receive  the 
worst  seats  in  the  house.  This  should  be  reformed 
altogether. 

A  day  or  two  after  I  had  written  the  above 
paragraph,  I  was  pleased  to  see  in  a  New  York 
newspaper  a  long  letter  from  F.  Ziegfeld,  Jr.,  an- 
nouncing that  the  New  Amsterdam  Theatre  would 
sell  seats  only  at  the  box  office.    While  his  par- 

48 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

ticular  show  has  no  interest  for  me,  I  commend 
heartily  his  courage  in  fighting  the  speculators  and 
the  hotels.  His  position  is  correct,  and  I  hope  he 
will  succeed  not  only  in  his  own  theatre,  but  that 
his  example  will  be  followed  by  others.  Here 
follows  a  portion  of  his  admirable  statement,  wliich 
appeared  in  the  early  summer  of  1918  : 

Three  weeks  and  five  days  have  passed  since  I  inaugurated 
my  fight  against  ticket  profiteering,  and  the  gross  takings 
of  the  Follies  for  that  period  are  $103,732,  the  government 
receiving  approximately  $9430  for  that  period.  It  is  with 
regret  that  in  an  article  printed  in  one  of  the  morning  papers 
interviews  with  other  managers  showed  them  lukewarm 
in  their  attitude  and  remarks  regarding  the  abolishing  in 
New  York  of  ticket  profiteering.  Their  attitude  evidently 
was  the  fear  that  their  attractions  could  not  withstand  the 
adverse  criticisms  of  their  performances  by  the  hotel  specu- 
lators and  agencies  —  that  the  fear  of  hot  weather  and  war 
conditions  might  mean  personal  loss  in  case  their  eighteen 
front  rows  were  not  in  the  hands  of  the  speculators  through 
advance  buy-outs. 

If  these  managers  could  see  the  continuous  line  at  the 
New  Amsterdam  box  office  and  read  the  thousands  of  let- 
ters that  I  have  received  from  my  patrons  they  would  know 
that  the  public  has  realized  that  the  time  has  come  when  all 
managers  must  prevent  their  tickets  from  getting  into  the 
hands  of  the  profiteers  and  the  increase  in  their  patronage 
will  more  than  compensate  them  for  the  loss  of  their  rake- 
off  in  dealing  with  speculators  instead  of  direct  with  the 
theatre-going  public.  The  managers  are  and  have  been 
too  closely  allied  with  the  ticket  profiteers  for  their  own  good. 
E  49 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

The  managers,  I  consider,  are  greatly  to  blame  for  driving 
the  public  away  from  the  box  ofi&ce.  The  cry  too  long  has 
been  "the  best  we  have  is  the  eighteenth  row,"  no  matter 
for  what  week  or  day,  or  how  far  ahead,  the  purchaser 
wanted  his  ticket.  They  concluded,  "Why  go  to  the  box 
office  when  you  can't  get  what  you  want?" 

Democracy  is  the  leading  theme  of  the  day.  We  are 
giving  our  all  to  fight  for  it  beyond  the  big  pond.  Why  not 
establish  it  honestly  in  our  home  institutions  ?  The  theatre 
has  done  its  bit  in  every  other  direction ;  why  not  make 
every  person  equal  who  applies  for  seats?  Against  the 
greatest  odds  I  am  glad  to  say  I  have  successfully  done  so, 
as  far  as  tickets  for  the  Ziegfeld  Follies  and  the  Ziegfeld 
Midnight  Frolic  are  concerned.  Only  this  week  I  have 
turned  down  a  buyout  of  475  seats  a  night  at  a  profit  to 
me  over  box  office  prices  of  over  $1700  weekly.  The  buy- 
out assured  me  against  any  loss  during  the  hot  weather. 
I  admit  I  am  not  in  the  theatrical  business  for  my  health, 
but  I  honestly  believe  that  ticket  profiteering  if  continued, 
means  death  to  the  theatre.  .  .  . 

The  management  of  our  big  hotels  of  our  great  city,  who 
I  admit  derive  great  benefit  from  the  ticket  agencies  placed 
in  their  lobbies,  could  greatly  help  the  present  state  of 
affairs  by  compelling  these  agencies  to  sell  their  tickets  at 
a  premium  of  not  more  than  50  cents  over  the  box  office 
price,  .but  whether  this  ordinance  is  passed  or  not,  tick- 
ets for  Ziegfeld  Follies  are  on  sale  and  will  be  until  the 
finish  of  the  Follies  van  in  New  York,  the  i8th  of  Sep- 
tember, and  every  seat  from  the  first  to  the  last  row  is  on 
sale  to  those  who  come  to  the  box  office  for  them. 

The  theatres  are  compelled  by  the  United  States  to  stamp 
on  each  ticket  the  price  at  which  that  ticket  is  sold,  and 


SO 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

what  I  can't  understand,  or  perhaps  it  has  been  overlooked 
by  Uncle  Sam,  is  why  that  same  law  does  not  apply  to  the 
ticket  profiteer.  Why  is  he  allowed  to  take  the  very  same 
ticket  on  which  the  price  is  stamped  and  seU  it  for  more 
than  the  price  stamped  on  its  face  ?  This  is  a  phase  of  the 
controversy  which  has  not  been  brought  up.  BeUeve  me, 
I  am  in  this  fight  to  the  finish,  and  if  Alderman  Ouinn's 
ordinance  is  not  passed,  I  am  going  to  ascertain  why  the 
ticket -profiteer  has  privileges  that  are  denied  others.  In  a 
communication  from  District  Attorney  Swann,  I  am  glad 
to  learn  he  considered  ticket  speculating  a  non-essential 
industry,  and  the  fuU  resources  of  his  office  will  be  used 
under  the  anti-loafing  law  to  stamp  out  every  phase  of  it 
that  his  authority  empowers  him.  Last  Saturday  night 
Assistant  District  Attorney  Smith  was  in  evidence  on  Forty- 
second  Street  and  the  "Diggers"  were  apprehended.  The 
ticket  speculators  openly  boast  that  I  cannot  last  throughout 
the  summer  without  them,  but  I  believe  the  time  has  come 
when  the  pubUc  is  awake  on  this  subject  and  will  not  further 
tolerate  it,  and  will  refuse  to  attend  those  theatres  which 
allow  their  tickets  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  agencies.  A 
combination  of  manager  and  ticket  speculator  against  the 
public  is  not  tolerated  in  any  other  city.  Why  not  imite 
now  to  wipe  it  out  forever  in  New  York  and  protect  the 
pubUc  and  amusement-seeking  strangers  who  come  to  this 
great  city  for  their  entertainment? 

If  the  price  of  seats  at  the  theatre  had  risen  as 
so  many  other  things  have  risen,  it  would  be  most 
unfortunate.  One  essential  element  in  the  produc- 
tion of  good  plays  is  a  certain  amount  of  intelli- 
gence  in   the   audience.    Now   for   some   reason 

SI 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

Divine  Providence  has  not  given  to  the  majority 
of  intelligent  people  unlimited  cash.  The  ordinary 
well-educated  man  or  woman  must  sacrifice  some- 
thing else  he  wants  for  everything  he  buys.  The 
result  of  high  prices  in  the  theatre  is  simply  to  lower 
the  intelligence  of  the  audience,  which  in  turn 
reacts  on  the  proportion  of  cerebration  revealed  in 
the  play  and  in  the  acting  thereof.  And,  to  com- 
pete with  the  moving  pictures  —  which  have  helped 
in  keeping  down  the  price  of  theatre-seats  — 
managers  must  make,  except  in  musical  comedy, 
some  appeal  to  human  intelligence.  Suppose  a 
man,  his  wife,  and  two  daughters  decide  to  witness 
a  play ;  eight  dollars  gone  at  the  start ;  and  what 
Stevenson  called  the  "leakage  of  travel"  will  prob- 
ably raise  it  to  ten.  Indeed  the  man  who  can  get 
himself  and  his  family  from  the  house  or  hotel  to 
the  theatre  and  back  again,  with  no  more  expendi- 
ture than  I  have  indicated,  deserves  to  be  called  a 
financier.  Now  for  ten  dollars  it  is  at  least  an 
even  chance  that  the  family  will  see  a  vulgar  play, 
acted  in  a  clumsy  and  perhaps  silly  fashion.  And 
for  those  same  ten  dollars,  the  head  of  the  house 
can  purchase  not  merely  one  book,  but  a  whole 
set  of  standard  books,  which  will  remain  in  the 
library  permanently,  and  give  instruction  and 
delight  to  the  third  and  fourth  generations.  Be- 
tween these  two  alternatives,  how  long  will  a  wise 

52 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

man  hesitate  ?  And  I  repeat  that  the  eternal  men- 
ace of  the  movies  makes  the  theatre-manager  reckon 
on  a  comparatively  intelligent  audience.  This 
seems  to  me  to  supply  one  reason  why  the  evil 
tendency  of  rising  prices  in  the  theatres  failed  to 
develop. 

But  the  worst  tendency  in  the  early  years  of  the 
twentieth  century  was  the  craze  for  the  dramati- 
sation of  popular  novels.  This  craze  was  finally 
killed  by  the  blessed  American  sense  of  humour,  but 
it  wrought  havoc  in  dramatic  art  during  the  days 
wherein  it  afiSicted  us.  This  particular  fad  had 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  dramatisation  of 
great  works  of  fiction,  which  was  common  enough 
during  the  whole  nineteenth  century,  and  which  will 
continue  so  long  as  the  stage  lasts.  One  of  the 
most  memorable  performances  of  the  1917-1918 
season  was  the  production  by  the  admirable  French 
company  of  Les  Freres  Karamazov,  a  version  of 
Dostoevski's  masterpiece.  Years  ago,  Mr.  Soth- 
ern  put  on  a  play  founded  on  another  of  Dos- 
toevski's novels,  Crime  and  Punishment.  Mrs. 
Fiske  made  her  first  great  success  as  an  intel- 
lectual actress  when  she  staged  Tess  of  the  D'Urber- 
villes.  I  was  present  on  the  second  night,  and  there 
were  only  a  handful  of  persons  in  the  audience. 
But  the  dramatic  critics  told  everybody  not  to  miss 
it,  and  after  the  first  week  the  house  was  packed. 

53 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

Later   she   gave   an   interesting   transcript   from 
Vanity  Fair.    Such  performances  as  these  have  no 
connexion  with  "best  sellers/'  for  they  stand  or  fall 
yr  entirely  on  their  merits  as  acting  plays. 

The  rage  for  the  immediate  transfer  of  the  popular 
novel  to  the  boards  had  a  definite  beginning.  It 
began  in  1894,  with  Trilby  and  The  Prisoner  of 
Zenda,  and  spread  like  a  contagious  disease.  In  a 
very  short  time,  every  "best  seller"  stalked  before 
the  footlights.  Forty  or  fifty  novels,  already  now 
quite  forgotten,  brought  fortunes  to  the  box- 
office.  It  made  not  the  slightest  difference  whether 
or  not  the  story  had  material  adaptable  to  the 
stage.  The  only  question  was.  Is  everybody  talk- 
ing about  it  ?  Hall  Caine  used  to  sell  the  dramatic 
rights  to  his  novels  in  advance  of  their  publication, 
and  nearly  all  writers  of  romances  had  their  eyes 
on  this  enormous  additional  source  of  revenue  as 
they  composed  their  books.  The  climax  was  ap- 
parently reached  when  Beside  the  Bonnie  Briar  Bush 
was  dramatised.  Nearly  every  manager  in  New 
York  employed  a  man  whose  sole  tools  of  art  were 
the  scissors  and  the  paste-pot.  In  an  interesting 
interview  in  the  New  York  Sun  for  October  1,4, 
1900,  an  enterprising  theatrical  director  remarked, 
*'Six  New  York  theatres  are  presenting  plays 
made  from  books,  and  some  thirty  more  works 
of  fiction  are  to  be  transferred  to  the  stage  during 

54 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

the  coming  winter.  .  .  .  Fiction  writers  now  work 
with  one  eye  on  the  stage,  and  books  are  being  read 
by  actors  and  managers  in  the  hope  of  finding  there 
material.  .  .  .  The  vogue  of  the  dramatised  novel 
seems  likely  to  continue  for  some  time  to  come, 
and  it  will  be  limited  only  by  the  number  of  popular 
novels  that  the  authors  turn  out :  I  was  about  to 
say,  so  long  as  they  continued  to  write  novels  that 
could  be  dramatised,  but  apparently  no  such  dis- 
tinction as  that  exists  any  longer.  ...  I  some- 
times think  that  a  capable  man  could  dram.atise 
the  city  directory  well  enough  to  make  it  a  successful 
medium  for  a  popular  star."  As  has  been  said, 
this  fad  was  killed  by  the  American  sense  of  humour, 
which  is  as  potent  in  our  country  as  bad  art.  A 
cartoon  represented  Dr.  Johnson  lamenting  to  Bos- 
well  his  misfortune  that  he  had  not  lived  in  a  later 
time,  for  then  his  Dictionary  would  have  been 
dramatised !  Jennie  Betts  Hard  wick,  in  a  number 
of  Life,  wrote  a  Ballad  of  the  Modern  Play,  of  which 
the  first  stanza  ran  : 

When  folk  in  this  enlightened  age 

Fare  gaily  forth  to  view  the  play, 
They  see,  adapted  for  the  stage, 

The  book  they  finished  yesterday. 
Beneath  the  dramatiser's  sway 

Its  characters  to  being  spring, 
They  speak  and  move  in  hfeUke  way  — 

The  acted  novel  is  the  thing. 

55 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

In  January,  1901,  I  saw  it  seriously  stated  in  a 
reputable  journal  that  some  managers  kept  a  man 
on  the  railway  trains  to  observe  what  novels  had 
the  largest  sale. 

But  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  advance  of  the 
drama  in  America  was  checked  by  the  dramatised 
novel.  In  an  article  in  The  Independent  for  April  8, 
1897,  I  pointed  out  the  peril.  "Unless  some 
lucky  chance  happens,  the  relation  between  these 
two  forces  of  art  may  become  as  close  and  intimate 
in  1900  as  it  was  in  1600.  This  will  be  very  unfor- 
tunate for  both.  In  the  age  of  Elizabeth  most 
dramatists  did  not  invent  their  plots ;  they  found 
ready  material  in  histories,  poems,  and  especially 
in  contemporary  romances.  Shakespeare  took  the 
plot  of  As  You  Like  It  from  Lodge's  story  Rosa- 
lynde,  as  he  took  the  plot  of  Winter's  Tale  from 
Greene's  Pandosto.  But  his  motive  was  simple 
and  blameless;  he  selected  this  material,  not 
because  it  was  popular,  but  because  it  was  con- 
venient. .  .  .  But  now  we  are  in  danger  of  losing 
what  Httle  original  force  our  drama  possesses, 
owing  to  the  enormous  financial  returns  realised 
from  successfully  dramatising  a  successful  novel." 

My  fears  were  confirmed.  Marie  Corelli's  story. 
The  Master  Christian,  was  acted  as  a  play  in 
America  before  the  novel  was  published,  so  that 
there  might  be  no  quarrel  as  to  the  ownership  of 

S6 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

the  dramatic  rights  when  the  occasion  came  for 
the  theatrical  run.  The  vogue  of  the  dramatised 
novel  was  founded  on  the  desire  of  spectators  to  see 
favourite  characters  in  popular  books  incarnate  on 
the  stage.  When  I  attended  the  performance  of 
Trilby,  I  remember  the  tremendous  applause  that 
greeted  the  three  friends  as  they  appeared  arm  in 
arm  and  before  any  one  of  them  had  uttered  a  word. 
This  same  desire  was  capitalised  by  shrewd  man- 
agers in  an  analogous  species  of  theatrical  enter- 
tainment that  flourished  synchronously  with  the 
dramatised  novel,  and  that  was  intrinsically  no 
worse.  This  was  the  custom  of  making  overnight 
actors  out  of  prize-fighters  like  John  L.  SulHvan, 
James  J.  Corbett,  Robert  Fitzsimmons,  James  J. 
Jeffries,  Kid  McCoy,  and  many  others  —  all  of 
whom,  with  the  exception  of  Mr.  Corbett,  who  has 
some  natural  histrionic  gift  —  were  quite  innocent 
of  artistic  ability.  But  these  men  were  "in  the 
public  eye"  and  crowds  paid  money  to  see  and 
hear  these  famous  characters  on  the  boards. 
From  one  point  of  view,  it  was  worth  the  money. 
It  is  impossible  to  forget  the  shamefaced  way  in 
which  the  great  John  L.  Sullivan  said,  "Mother, 
I'll  take  care  of  you  now."  Nor  would  I  have 
missed  for  a  good  deal  seeing  Robert  Fitzsimmons 
in  The  Honest  Blacksmith.  When  the  virtuous 
maiden   was   pursued   by   the   designing   villain, 

57 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

Robert  knocked  him  down,  and  the  girl,  throwing 
her  arms  around  her  saviour's  neck,  cried,  "Oh 
Bob,  God  will  reward  you  !"  "Don't  mention  it," 
said  Bob. 

The  point  I  make  is  that  the  mobUisation  of 
prize-fighters  as  actors  was  not  one  whit  worse  than 
the  transformation  of  popular  books  into  plays. 
The  same  motive  governed  both. 

It  is  interesting  also  to  remember  that  the  rage 
for  the  dramatised  "best  seller"  degraded  the 
American  stage  in  another  way ;  I  mean  by  giving 
a  new  currency  to  that  most  artificial  form,  his- 
torical-costume-romantic-melodrama. After  the 
success  of  The  PrisoTier  of  Zenda,  the  pseudo- 
romantic  revival  in  English  prose  fiction  flourished 
for  ten  years,  from  1894  to  1904 ;  during  the  same 
period  came  the  vogue  of  the  dramatised  book,  and 
quite  naturally  the  easiest  books  to  turn  into  plays 
were  romances  stuffed  with  incident,  like  When 
Knighthood  Was  in  Flower^  Under  the  Red  Robe, 
Janice  Meredith.  For  the  first  few  years  of  our 
century  romantic  melodrama  had  its  innings,  as 
may  be  seen  by  a  glance  at  the  table  printed  in  the 
first  chapter.  To-day  nothing  seems  more  obsolete 
than  this.  When,  in  the  year  1915,  Lou  Tellegen 
produced  A  King  of  Nowhere,  it  seemed  incredible 
that  the  audience  were  expected  to  take  it  seriously. 
To-day,  with  a  few  exceptions,  melodrama  will  not 

58 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

succeed  on  the  metropolitan  stage  unless  it  is 
mingled  with  humour,  as  in  Within  the  Law,  or 
unless  it  is  frankly  a  farcical  burlesque ;  there  is  a 
genuine  field  for  melodramatic  farce,  though  it  must 
be  done  better  than  Granville  Barker's  contemp- 
tuous arrangement  of  Stevenson's  Wrong  Box. 
He  was  apparently  trying  to  *'get  back"  at  the 
public  for  its  lack  of  support  of  his  most  ambitious 
and  —  to  my  mind  —  magnificent  productions ; 
but  his  rebuke  was  less  successful  than  his  serious 
work.  The  present  indifference  to  melodrama  is 
perhaps  the  reason  why  Eugene  Walter's  play, 
The  Heritage,  failed  in  New  York  during  the  past 
season;  it  had  much  to  commend  it,  there  were 
some  scenes  of  tremendous  force,  and  it  was  remark- 
ably well  acted.  It  was  apparently  too  horrible 
for  the  public,  and  too  theatrical  for  the  critics. 
I  frankly  confess  that  I  enjoyed  it,  though  it  was 
on  a  lower  level  than  the  author's  masterpiece, 
The  Easiest  Way. 

From  the  death  of  these  evil  tendencies,  which 
deserve  recording  in  any  sketch  of  twentieth  cen- 
tury drama,  it  ought  to  be  clear  that  the  hope  of 
the  American  stage  is  in  original  comedy,  written 
on  American  themes  by  American  authors.  Such 
plays  as  The  Unchastened  Woman  and  Why  Marry, 
and  The  Copperhead  —  the  last-named  glorified 
by  the  superb  acting  of  Lionel  Barrymore  —  point 

59 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

toward  the  true  road.  If  we  can  keep  to  such 
standards,  the  time  may  come  when  our  exports 
will  actually  exceed  our  imports.  Between  two 
visits  that  William  Archer  made  to  America  in  the 
twentieth  century  our  drama  sensibly  advanced ; 
he  said  that  at  his  first  visit  nearly  every  successful 
play  in  New  York  was  either  an  importation  or  an 
adaptation;  at  the  second  visit  the  best  were 
original.  We  have  already  exported  some  plays 
to  England  —  not  always  the  best  —  and  many  to 
Australia.  In  the  year  1916,  of  twenty-five  pro- 
duced in  Melbourne,  five  were  Australian,  six 
English,  one  French,  and  thirteen  American. 
Among  the  revivals  were  six  other  American  plays. 
From  the  first  of  January  to  the  first  of  April,  191 7, 
in  that  city  six  new  dramas  were  produced,  every 
one  of  which  came  from  America.  Yet  it  should 
also  be  said,  that  according  to  the  Melbourne 
correspondent  of  the  Boston  Monitor,  "the  only 
American  play  staged  in  eight  years  which  left  a 
memory  of  real  artistic  excellence  is  Clyde  Fitch's 
The  Truth:' 

In  a  letter  written  from  London,  October  5,  1916, 
published  in  the  New  York  Nation,  William  Archer 
declared,  "a  large  part  of  the  British  Drama  is 
American,  and  what  is  not  American  is  mainly 
idiotic.  Looking  down  the  column  of  theatrical 
advertisements,  I  find  that  the  following  American 

60 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

plays  are  running,  all  of  them,  I  believe,  with  some 
measure  of  success :  Daddy  Longlegs,  Romance, 
Her  Husband's  Wife,  The  Misleading  Lady,  Mr. 
Manhattan,  Broadway  Jones,  Potash  and  Pcrlmutter 
in  Society  —  and  Peg  o'  My  Heart  has  only  just 
exhausted  its  enormous  vogue." 

Material  and  temporal  things  like  cash  and  food 
often  have  a  profound  influence  on  things  that  are 
unseen  and  eternal.  I  am  convinced  that  American 
and  British  drama  would  immediately  gain  in 
seriousness  and  become  closer  to  the  national  life 
if  Anglo-Saxons  were  willing  to  sacrifice  the  evening 
meal  on  the  altar  of  art.  In  some  parts  of  Europe 
the  opera  and  the  theatre  are  not  intended  mainly 
for  the  leisure  class;  they  are  regarded,  not  as 
a  luxury,  but  as  a  necessity.  It  is  assumed  that 
the  audience  will  be  composed  of  persons  who  will 
have  to  get  up  at  the  usual  hour  the  following 
morning,  and  do  the  day's  work.  In  these  localities 
long  plays  begin  at  seven,  ordinary  plays  of  ordinary 
length  at  half-past  seven,  and  operas  at  six.  There 
is  a  long  pause  after  one  of  the  acts,  where  those  who 
have  been  unable  to  get  anything  to  eat  before  the 
play,  may  obtain  refreshment,  while  others  who 
so  wish  may  have  a  hearty  supper  after  the  per- 
formance, and  still  be  in  bed  by  eleven  o'clock,  a 
reasonable  hour  for  beginning  the  night's  rest. 
Furthermore  the  audience  does  not  come  to  the 

6i 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

theatre  stupefied  and  soggy  with  the  load  of  a 
heavy  dinner.  Their  minds  are  alert,  far  better 
prepared  to  appreciate  the  best  that  art  can  offer. 
I  had  hoped  that  war  conditions  in  America 
would  force  our  theatres  to  begin  at  seven,  and 
close  at  ten  or  not  much  later ;  but  alas !  this 
happy  arrangement  only  lasted  in  a  few  places  for 
a  short  period,  and  then  we  went  back  to  our  old 
vices.  Many  Americans  who  travel  to  New  York 
to  see  a  play  regard  the  whole  expedition  as  a  mild 
debauch;  every  visit  to  the  theatre  means  a  bad 
morning  after.  In  England  one  of  the  chief  foes 
of  the  drama  is  the  English  dinner,  solemn,  solid, 
and  late ;  a  heavy  and  brain-killing  ordeal.  Man- 
agers in  London  have  been  forced  to  begin  later 
and  later,  and  often  to  put  on  a  curtain-raiser, 
during  the  performance  of  which  the  audience 
noisily  find  their  places.  The  time  of  beginning 
caused  so  much  serious  reflection  that  on  one 
occasion  the  London  managers  held  a  meeting, 
and  then  sent  out  a  circular  letter  to  a  great  many 
people,  to  enquire  whether  the  dinner  could  be 
placed  earlier,  or  the  theatre  still  later  in  the  night. 
The  letter  wound  up  with  this  question  —  At  what 
hour  should  the  curtain  rise?  A  large  variety  of 
answers  came  in,  some  insisting  on  six,  some  on 
seven,  and  some  on  nine  o'clock :  a  characteristic 
response  was  sent  by  Bernard  Shaw  —  "For  the 

62 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

majority  of  modern  plays,  the  curtain  should  not 
rise  at  all." 

The  Anglo-Saxon  custom  of  a  "theatre-party," 
to  which  a  considerable  number  of  guests  are 
invited,  most  of  whom  come  late,  finally  sit  down 
to  a  long  and  expensive  banquet,  eventually 
arriving  at  the  theatre  half  an  hour  after  the  per- 
formance has  begun,  is  about  as  helpful  a  prepara- 
tion toward  appreciating  a  good  play  as  it  would 
be  toward  competing  in  a  mile  run.  I  tremble  to 
think  what  would  happen  to  a  man  who  should 
urge  that  opera  in  New  York  begin  at  six  o'clock ; 
yet  the  first  performance  of  Parsifal  in  New  York 
began  at  five,  and  Wagner  operas  at  Covent  Garden 
opened  at  the  same  hour.  Plays  that  begin  at  half- 
past  eight  or  nine  with  long  intervals  after  each  act, 
during  which  systematic  arrangements  are  provided 
to  erase  the  performance,  can  hardly  make  a  deep 
impression.  One  reason  why  J.  M.  Barrie  wrote 
The  Twelve  Pound  Look  in  one  act,  was  because  he 
was  determined  not  to  be  interrupted  at  a  vital 
moment  in  the  story. 


63 


Ill 


THE  DRAMA  LEAGUE  AND  THE  INDEPENDENT 
THEATRE 

Effect  of  the  Great  War  on  the  drama  —  three  English  wit- 
nesses —  the  Drama  League  —  a  contrast  between  two  dramatists 

—  George  M.  Cohan  —  the  independent  theatre  —  Little  Thea- 
tres in  the  United  States  —  Miss  Mackay's  book  —  Antoine  —  the 
Northampton  municipal  theatre  —  the  Chicago  little  theatre  — 
Washington  Square  players  —  Stuart  Walker  —  Theodore  Dreiser 

—  Hull  House,  Chicago  —  Roland  Holt  —  the  laboratory  theatre 
at  Pittsburg  —  Franklin  Sargent  —  the  study  of  the  theatre  at 
American  universities  —  George  P.  Baker  —  the  Yale  Dramatic 
Association  —  graduates  of  Harvard  and  Yale. 

The  Great  War,  which  has  in  so  many  places 
transformed  triviality  into  seriousness,  which  has 
revealed  everywhere  so  much  sublime  heroism  in 
the  minds  of  men  and  women,  has  certainly  not 
elevated  the  theatre.  It  seems  particularly  unfor- 
tunate that  just  at  the  time  when  we  have  so  many 
able  dramatists  in  both  England  and  America, 
the  level  of  excellence  on  the  London  and  New  York 
stage  should  be  so  low.  The  war  is  not  to  blame  for 
this ;  the  people  are  to  blame.  In  order  to  under- 
stand why  it  is  that  during  days  wherein  we  are  all 
witnessing  the  greatest  drama  in  human  history,  the 
theatres  for  the  most  part  furnish  silliness  and  vul- 

64 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

garity,  we  must  remember  that  before  the  war  the 
mass  of  Englishmen  and  Americans  looked  upon 
play-going  merely  as  a  form  of  entertainment. 
Only  the  other  day  a  man  said  to  a  minister  of 
the  Grospel,  "Since  this  war  began  in  1914  I  have 
ceased  to  believe  in  God."  The  minister  replied, 
"Did  you  believe  in  Him  before  the  war?" 

If  dramatic  art  before  19 14  had  been  a  recognised 
part  of  national  life  and  of  the  education  of  the 
people,  had  it  even  played  so  important  a  part  as 
orchestral  music  and  grand  opera,  we  should  never 
have  allowed  it  to  sink  during  the  war.  In  the  year 
406  B.C.,  toward  the  end  of  the  long  struggle  between 
Athens  and  Sparta,  when  it  was  plain  that  Athens 
was  hopelessly  beaten,  and  the  bitter  end  was  near, 
Euripides  put  on  the  Athenian  stage  one  of  his 
greatest  masterpieces.  Great  art  will  live  even 
amid  national  distress.  But  if  the  people  regard 
the  theatre  as  a  place  of  light  entertainment,  where 
they  check  their  brains  with  their  overcoats  before 
entering  the  auditorium,  then  in  time  of  war  they 
will  naturally  seek  even  lighter  entertainment  as  a 
relief  from  the  all-enveloping  shadow.  It  has  not 
yet  occurred  to  them  that  the  best  relief  from  real 
tragedy  is  another  form  of  elevation,  another  form 
of  intense  mental  activity,  rather  than  brain-shat- 
tering nonsense.  IVIr.  Gladstone,  Lord  Morley, 
Mr.  Balfour,  and  other  English  statesmen  found  the 
9  65 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

best  change  from  absorbing  political  activities  in 
mental  work  of  another  sort,  rather  than  in  some- 
thing silly  or  base.  In  order  to  prove  that  I  am 
not  painting  the  picture  in  too  dark  colours,  I 
should  like  to  call  to  the  witness  stand  three 
authoritative  and  patriotic  testifiers. 

In  the  New  York  Nation  for  November  9,  191 6, 
WilHam  Archer  wrote  from  London,  "As  for  the 
English  productions,  a  selection  of  titles,  will,  I 
think,  justify  my  description  of  the  majority  of  them 
[as  idiotic] :  High  Jinks,  Pell  Mell,  This  and  That,  A 
Little  Bit  of  Fluff,  Woman  and  Wine,  Ye  Gods  !  Some, 
The  Bing  Boys  are  Here,  Look  Who^s  Here,  Razzle- 
Dazzle  !  The  Girl  from  Ciro^s.  Most  of  these  pro- 
ductions are  'revues,'  making  no  pretension  to 
sanity;  and  the  remainder  are  farces  of  brainless 
and  degraded  cynicism.  Nor  is  the  tale  of  triviality 
exhausted  in  this  list ;  for  several  pieces  which  do 
not  proclaim  their  idiocy  in  their  titles  are  in  fact 
as  idiotic  as  the  rest."  He  adds,  "Gen.  Smith- 
Dorrien  made  some  sensation  by  denouncing  the 
evil  from  the  moral  point  of  view.  But  there  is, 
in  truth,  much  more  imbecility  than  vice  in  the 
matter.  It  is  a  curious  fact  —  due,  I  think,  to  a 
long  sequence  of  historical  causes  —  that  in  Eng- 
land many  people  of  more  than  average  intelli- 
gence in  every  other  respect  become  imbeciles  the 
moment  they  approach  the  theatre." 
66 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

In  a  number  of  the  London  Times,  commenting 
on  the  1916  season,  the  critic  wrote,  "it  would 
almost  seem  as  if  the  war  had  had  a  stultifying  effect 
on  the  playwright's  imagination,"  and  followed 
up  this  statement  with  a  pessimistic  review  of  the 
year. 

In  the  London  AthencBum  for  August,  191 7, 
under  the  caption  The  Theatre  We  Deserve,  a 
thoughtful  writer  begins  as  follows:  "Whatever 
the  War  has  ennobled,  its  purifying  flame  has  at 
least  left  the  English  theatre  unscorched.  Triv- 
iality remains  its  characteristic  note,  with  over- 
tones of  the  lighter  pornography.  .  .  .  But  we 
need  not  flatter  ourselves  that  it  is  war  which  has 
made  our  theatre  trivial;  it  has  at  the  most 
emphasised  an  already  established  tradition  .  .  . 
the  fault  lies  not  with  the  actor-managers  and 
business  managers,  or  the  mistresses  of  theatrical 
speculators,  or  the  playwrights,  or  even  with  the 
high  ground-rents  and  subcontracting  manipula- 
tions, but  primarily  with  the  audiences.  These 
other  factors  have  an  influence,  serious  and  often 
degrading,  but  indirect.  The  main  trouble  is  the 
body  of  playgoers  —  a  conclusion  which  is,  of 
course,  a  platitude  analogous  to  that  which  declares 
that  a  nation  has  the  government,  the  press,  the 
priests,  it  deserves." 

The  Athenmum  writer  has  a  remedy,  which  it  is 
67 


THE  TV/ENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

pleasant  to  remember,  is  already  in  America  an 
accomplished  fact,  and  which  is  bound  to  help  the 
stage.  ''To  the  writer  it  seems  perfectly  possible 
as  a  step  to  a  better  theatre  to  organise  an  audience 
...  a  wide,  loosely  knitted  theatre  society  could 
be  formed  which  would  rally  round  such  managers 
as  should  be  courageous  enough  to  attempt  the 
play  which  is  approved  by  their  artistic  conscience, 
but  now  commonly  declined  because  it  is  not 
what  (they  assume)  the  pubUc  wants  .  .  .  Such  a 
theatre  society  is  in  process  of  being  formed,  and 
the  Athen(Biim  would  be  glad  to  put  any  inquirers 
in  touch  with  the  venturesome  optimists  who  are 
putting  themselves  at  the  heroic  pains  to  organise 
it." 

This  society,  known  as  the  Drama  League,  has  a 
healthy  existence  in  the  United  States.  In  the 
comparative  absence  of  repertory  theatres,  with 
nearly  every  town  lacking  a  stock  company,  its 
efforts  have  not  been  as  fruitful  as  they  might  be 
with  a  better  system  of  play-production.  But  the 
League  is  gradually  spreading  sound  doctrine,  and 
its  main  work  is  devoted  to  the  education  of  audi- 
ences. Both  managers  and  dramatists  are  glad 
to  have  the  League's  endorsement;  it  means  in- 
creased business.  The  League  flourishes  in  every 
part  of  America.  I  have  attended  enthusiastic 
and  crowded  meetings  in  Chicago,  New  Orleans, 

68 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

Birmingham,  Pittsburgh,  and  many  other  cities. 
The  League  is  a  vital  force,  and  its  influence  is 
steadily  widening  and  deepening. 

The  members  of  the  League  are  not  easily  dis- 
couraged. This  is  fortunate,  for  the  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  progress  are  enormous.  Besides  the 
general  inertia  in  the  road  of  any  reform,  they  must 
count  on  the  hostility  of  many  managers,  some 
of  whom  not  only  wish  no  reform,  but  sincerely 
believe  that  dramatic  criticism  should  be  abolished ; 
and  they  must  count  on  the  cynical  attitude  of 
the  popular  pla3^wright  who  makes  his  income  by 
catering  to  the  public  taste.  He  will  point  to  his 
own  success  with  complacent  superiority,  and 
regard  every  attempt  to  elevate  the  drama  as  the 
work  of  penniless  cranks  ignorant  of  true  theatrical 
conditions.  Nay,  he  will  insist  that  all  those  who 
wish  better  plays  on  the  stage  mean  by  that  goal 
nothing  but  boredom.  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  he 
has  his  reward.     He  means  to  keep  it  too. 

For  an  excellent  illustration  of  what  I  mean  by  a 
popular  playwright  who  is  only  a  caterer,  I  select 
a  pleasant  gentleman  who  speaks  with  frankness 
and  modesty  of  his  own  work.  So  far  as  I  know 
he  has  never  written  anything  vulgar  or  debasing, 
and  I  am  quite  sure  that  the  main  object  of  his 
hf e  —  which  is  to  please  theatre  audiences  — 
would  never  lead  him  into  any  line  of  work  that  he 

69 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

thought  degrading.  He  is  respectable,  and  not 
because  it  pays,  either,  but  because  socially  he  is 
a  respectable  man.  But  the  trouble  with  him  is 
that  he  is  first,  last,  and  all  the  time  an  entertainer. 
He  has  pleased  many  grown-up  children  so  long 
that  it  has  apparently  never  dawned  upon  him  that 
there  is  something  in  the  theatre  more  interesting 
than  lively  talk  and  amusing  situations.  I  refer 
of  course  to  Ideas,  which  his  plays  not  only  do  not 
possess,  but  which,  in  any  connexion  with  the 
theatre,  he  has  not  even  considered. 

On  a  visit,  at  the  height  of  his  success,  to  New 
York,  he  granted  an  interview  to  the  Times.  He 
was  of  course,  only  half-serious,  Uke  his  plays. 
Here  are  some  of  the  things  he  said  with  a  pleasant 
smile.  When  the  newspaper  representative  asked 
him  about  the  failure  of  good  plays  and  the  success 
of  trash,  he  remarked,  "I  don't  know  what  on 
earth  it  means.  It  seems  to  me  to  have  extremely 
little  sense  in  it.  Once  in  a  hundred  times,  when  a 
play  is  a  failure,  it  fails  because  it  is  over  the  heads 
of  the  audience.  The  ninety-nine  other  times  it 
fails  because  it  is  beneath  the  audience's  contempt 
...  It  is  most  unfair  to  abuse  the  managers 
and  dramatists  for  any  such  state  of  affairs.  You 
must  abuse  your  public.  The  public  gets  what  it 
asks  for.  .  .  .  Personally,  I  don't  want  to  be 
uplifted,  but  I  dare  say  there  are  people  who  do. 

70 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

The  only  thing  I  resent  is  that  they  should  ask  me 
to  uplift  them.  ...  To  write  a  play  requires  no 
intellectual  ability.  It  is  well  to  have  intellectual 
ability,  but  not  essential.  You  can  write  a  play 
if  you  have  the  knack  of  getting  what  you  have  to 
say  over  the  footlights.  And  Heaven  only  knows 
what  that  knack  is  and  how  it  comes.  Fortunately, 
only  a  very  few  have  it,  and  those  who  have  are 
able  to  keep  the  wolf  from  the  door  —  and  live 
in  the  St.  Regis,"  said  he,  with  a  twinkle. 

The  next  year,  on  the  Continent,  I  had  a  talk 
with  one  of  the  greatest  dramatists  of  our  time, 
a  man  who  has  profoundly  influenced  not  only 
the  stage,  but  also  modern  thought.  And  yet  the 
majority  of  his  plays  have  been  failures  on  the 
stage,  because  he  has  in  each  case  tried  for  some- 
thing original,  something  that  had  not  before  been 
attempted.  I  asked  him  whether  his  numerous 
failures  distressed  him  very  much,  and  he  replied, 
"The  true  artist,  the  true  dramatist,  must  not 
think  of  the  box-office  while  he  is  writing  his  plays. 
He  must  express  himself,  which  is  the  only  reason 
for  writing  at  all.  If  what  he  writes  happens  to  be 
financially  successful,  so  much  the  better.  But  he 
must  not  think  of  popular  success  while  he  is  at 
work." 

The  difference  between  these  two  men  is  the  dif- 
ference between  failure  in  success  and  success  in 

71 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

failure.  The  first  man  is  a  facile  playwright,  who 
makes  a  fortune  by  following  the  public  taste.  He 
never  has  been  a  leader,  he  never  will  be,  and  ap- 
parently is  contented  not  to  be.  The  stage  is  his 
livelihood,  a  pleasant  and  respectable  way  of  earn- 
ing a  living.  But  his  influence  on  the  stage,  and  on 
modern  drama,  and  on  modern  thought,  is  precisely 
zero.  The  second  man  has  missed  the  target  more 
times  than  he  has  hit  it,  because  his  target  is  a 
difficult  one.  But  his  few  hits  have  made  him  one 
of  the  greatest  figures  in  the  world  of  literature 
and  thought,  and  his  misses  have  been  more  instruc- 
tive than  most  hits.  He  commands  the  intellectual 
respect  of  the  world,  and  it  would  be  impossible  to 
write  the  history  of  European  drama  without  em- 
phasising his  efforts. 

But  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  a  successful 
play  must  necessarily  be  devoid  of  cerebration.  Sir 
Arthur  Pinero,  who  has  often  descended  to  what  he 
apparently  at  the  moment  thought  was  the  popular 
level,  has  earned  his  justly  high  reputation  as  a 
dramatist  when  he  has  given  the  best  of  his  thought 
as  well  as  of  his  technique  to  the  undertaking. 
The  Second  Mrs.  Tanqueray,  His  House  in  Order, 
and  The  Thunderbolt  are  more  often  associated  ^vith 
his  name  than  The  Wife  without  a  Smile.  In  the 
field  of  the  novel,  Arnold  Bennett's  position  depends 
upon   The  Old  V/ives^   Tale  rather  than  on  his 

72 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

numerous  pot-boilers.  There  are  many  dramatists 
and  novelists  who  think  it  unfair  when  they  are 
abused  by  the  critics  for  producing  trash.  They 
say,  "But,  my  dear  sir,  I  don't  profess  to  uplift 
the  public.  All  I  am  trying  to  do  is  to  make  a 
living.  And  I  am  making  a  remarkably  good  one. 
Why  is  it  not  just  as  respectable  to  earn  money  by 
making  plays  to  fill  a  popular  demand,  as  it  is  to 
make  shoes?"  But  the  critics  —  and  the  critics 
are  simply  the  conscience  of  the  public  —  will  never 
forgive  a  man  for  doing  less  than  his  best.  The 
maker  of  shoes,  if  he  succeeds,  is  presumably  doing 
his  best ;  the  maker  of  theatrical  entertainment, 
when  he  succeeds,  may  be  revealed  only  as  a  traitor 
to  his  higher  self. 

I  remember  George  M.  Cohan,  in  one  of  his 
old-time  flag-dances,  with  every  seat  in  the  house 
taken,  singing  a  topical  song  ridiculing  the  critics. 
He  pointed  to  himself  with  a  contagious  laugh, 
saying 

The  rich  are  growing  richer 

and  then,  pointing  to  the  struggling  musicians  in  the 
orchestra  — 

The  poor  are  growing  poorer. 

But  Mr.  Cohan  went  forward  when  he  decided  to 
change   from   dancing   to   play- writing.    And   it 

73 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

may  be  that  he  will  some  day  decide  to  reach  that 
place  to  which  his  talents  must  constantly  invite 
him.  It  may  seem  absurd  for  me  to  suggest  that 
so  successful,  so  apparently  cheerful  a  person  as 
Mr.  Cohan  is  at  heart  discontented.  Nevertheless, 
I  am  sure,  that  with  his  genuine  ability,  there  are 
times  when  he  is  dissatisfied.  Not  dissatisfied  with 
his  income;  I  mean  dissatisfied  with  himself. 
No  man  with  brains  ever  lives  long  in  the  tempera- 
ture of  complacency. 

Evidences  for  better  days  in  the  American  theatre 
are  not  always  to  be  found  in  the  long  runs  of  popu- 
lar plays.  They  are  to  be  found  in  more  obscure 
but  more  veritable  signs  of  promise.  The  increase 
in  the  number  of  stock  companies,  the  growth  of 
municipal  theatres,  the  development  of  the  Little 
Theatres,  the  influence  of  the  Drama  League,  the 
widespread  and  remarkable  interest  taken  in  uni- 
versity courses  on  modern  drama  —  all  of  these 
stimulate  hope. 

Constance  Mackay,  in  her  admirable  book.  The 
Little  Theatre  in  the  United  States,  says,  "Northamp- 
ton, Mass.,  has  the  only  Municipal  Theatre  in  the 
United  States."  But  the  tiny  town  of  Lewes  in 
Delaware  has  supported  for  some  years  a  success- 
ful municipal  theatre.  It  was  erected  by  pubhc 
subscription,  is  managed  by  a  commission,  and 
affords  the  citizens  opportunities  to  hear  good  plays 

74 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

performed  by  resident  talent  and  by  visiting  com- 
panies. There  is  a  municipal  theatre  in  Colorado, 
and  there  are  probably  others.  In  Canada,  Port 
Arthur  has  had  one  for  a  long  time.  But  the  first 
and  most  important  one  in  America  is  at  North- 
ampton, and  the  experiment  has  helped  to  make  the 
town  famous.  It  was  an  ideal  place  to  make  the 
trial,  for  there  are  nearly  two  thousand  girls  in 
Smith  College.  It  started  in  1892  through  the 
generosity  of  Mr.  E.  H.  R.  Lyman,  and  twenty 
years  later  was  reorganised.  The  theatre  is  owned 
and  the  support  of  the  company  guaranteed  by  the 
city.  Each  week  a  new  play  is  given,  and  the  best 
travelling  companies  are  invited  thither.  Being 
called  before  the  curtain  after  a  performance  of 
Hamlet,  Mr.  Forbes-Robertson  said,  "No  matter 
what  it  costs  you,  do  not  give  up  your  Municipal 
Theatre." 

Miss  Mackay's  book  should  be  consulted  by  all 
who  are  interested  in  the  growth  of  Httle  theatres 
and  repertory  theatres  in  America.  It  was  pub- 
lished in  191 7,  and  the  first  sentence  of  the  preface 
has  a  triumphant  ring.  "This  book  aims  to  give 
a  complete  survey  of  one  of  the  newest,  freest,  most 
potent,  and  democratic  forces  in  the  art  of  the 
American  stage  —  the  Little  Theatre." 

The  idea  of  the  Little  Theatre  came  from  one  of 
the  ablest  and  shrewdest  managers  in  the  world, 
75 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

Antoine  of  Paris,  who  has  succeeded  in  all  his 
undertakings  except  when  he  tried,  at  the  request 
of  the  State,  to  direct  that  famous  old  barn  by  the 
Luxembourg,  the  Odeon,  hallowed  in  the  memories 
of  thousands  of  students  in  the  Quarter.  Paris 
theatres  are  exceedingly  dirty,  possibly  because 
they  are  open  seven  nights  in  the  week,  and  the 
Odeon  was  the  dirtiest  of  all.  He  spent  months 
cleaning  and  restoring  it,  he  sat  down  in  every  bad 
seat  in  the  structure  to  see  if  a  good  view  of  the 
stage  were  obtainable;  if  it  were  not,  he  had  the 
seat  removed.  Possibly  a  man  of  his  independence 
could  not  accommodate  himself  to  State  control; 
I  suspect  he  was  often  homesick  for  his  own  theatre 
on  the  Boulevard,  the  Theatre  Antoine,  where  the 
best  seats  used  to  sell  for  five  francs,  and  where  he 
himself  acted  in  King  Lear,  Ghosts,  and  many  con- 
temporary pieces. 

It  was  in  1887  that  he  made  his  epoch-making 
experiment.  Miss  Mackay  quotes  the  late  Jules 
Lemaitre:  "We  had  the  air  of  good  Magi  in 
mackintoshes  seeking  out  some  lowly  but  glorious 
manger.  Can  it  be  that  in  this  manger  the  decrepit 
and  doting  drama  is  destined  to  be  born  again!" 
She  adds,  "Lemaitre's  words  were  prophetic. 
Had  he  been,  in  his  feuilleton,  even  more  prophetic, 
he  might  have  pointed  out  that  Andre  Antoine 
by  establishing  the  first  genuine  Little  Theatre  the 

76 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

world  had  ever  seen  was  to  influence  the  art  of  the 
stage  more  profoundly  than  any  man  of  his  gen- 
eration." 

I  will  myself  pay  another  tribute  to  Antoine  by 
sajdng  that  it  was  largely  owing  to  his  efforts  that 
the  great  name  of  Henry  Becque  was  rescued  from 
forgetfulness,  and  his  masterpieces  restored  to  the 
stage. 

From  the  initial  Free  Theatre  of  Antoine  in  1887 
sprang  the  Little  Theatre  idea  that  spread  grad- 
ually over  Europe,  and  reached  the  United  States 
in  the  season  of  1911-1912.  According  to  Miss 
Mackay,  "Out  of  lifty-five  Little  Theatres  in  the 
United  States  there  have  been  four  failures."  An 
impressive  record. 

Not  only  have  our  American  Little  Theatres 
raised  the  standard  of  acting  and  stage  presenta- 
tion, but  they  have  made  a  home  for  one-act  plays, 
analogous  to  the  art  of  the  short-story  in  prose 
fiction.  The  attempt  of  the  Princess  Theatre  in 
New  York  to  imitate  the  Grand  Guignol  in  Paris 
by  combining  short  horrors  with  short  farces  faded 
away,  partly  because  the  American  public  was  not 
sufficiently  seasoned,  partly  because  the  attempt 
lacked  dramatic  sincerity.  But  other  undertakings, 
even  though  some  of  them  have  become  temporarily 
bankrupt,  had  notable  results.  Chief  among  these 
is  Maurice  Browne's  Chicago  Little  Theatre,  The 

77 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

Washington  Square  and  The  Greenwich  Village 
players  in  New  York,  and  the  whole  work  of  Stuart 
Walker,  first  as  originator  and  director  of  the 
Portmanteau  Theatre,  and  then  as  Director  of 
orthodox  successful  plays. 

The  Chicago  theatre  produced  plays  by  Eurip- 
ides, Ibsen,  Strindberg,  Shaw,  Houghton,  Hankin, 
Dunsany,  Yeats  —  a  long  list  of  bold  experiments. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  Maurice  Browne 
quickened  the  intellectual  life  of  Chicago.  The 
Washington  Square  players,  starting  as  amateurs, 
graduated  into  professionals,  leased  a  regular 
theatre,  and  gave  performances  both  exotic  and 
indigenous,  that  attracted  the  attention  of  the 
whole  country.  As  I  am  writing  this  paragraph, 
they  are  playing  in  San  Francisco.  Of  their 
original  American  pieces,  nothing  impressed  me 
more  than  Susan  Glaspell's  one-act  Trifles,  an 
absolutely  truthful  tragedy  of  farm  life,  exceedingly 
well  acted.  This  play  gives  Miss  Glaspell  a  high 
place  among  American  dramatists. 

Stuart  Walker  is  a  remarkable  combination  of 
idealism  and  common  sense.  No  director  has 
higher  aims  than  he,  or  shows  better  judgment  in 
their  attainment.  He  founded  his  now  famous 
Portmanteau  Theatre  —  where  the  scenery  is 
carried  about  with  the  company  and  can  be  set 
up  in  a  few  moments  either  out  or  indoors  —  in  the 

78 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

season  of  1915-1916.  One  of  his  most  notable  per- 
formances is  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle,  a  splendid, 
rollicking,  English  university  farce  of  the  sixteenth 
century .  In  the  winter  of  iQiy-igiShe  produced  in 
New  York  The  Book  of  Job  in  a  beautiful  and  dignified 
manner.  Fortunately  at  the  same  time  he  mounted 
one  of  the  most  successful  plays  in  America, 
a  dramatisation  of  Booth  Tarkington's  Seventeen. 
Nothing  pleased  me  more  than  the  run  of  this 
delightful  comedy,  for  I  knew  that  it  meant  some- 
thing more  than  money  to  Mr.  Walker.  It  meant 
freedom  —  a  free  hand  to  go  ahead  with  things 
closer  to  his  heart.  He  told  me  so  between  the  acts. 
I  rejoice  in  his  youth;  he  ought  to  have  a  long 
career  and  to  accomplish  great  things  for  American 
drama. 

Mr.  Jewett,  with  his  company  of  repertory 
players  at  the  small  Copley  Theatre  in  Boston, 
has  produced  many  excellent  dramas  in  an  excellent 
way ;  and  the  interesting  experiments  made  by  the 
Little  Theatre  of  Indianapolis,  which  was  founded 
in  191 5,  have  excited  lovers  of  theatrical  art 
throughout  the  whole  country.  Mr.  Samuel  A. 
Eliot,  Jr.,  was  the  first  director,  and  set  a  high 
standard  which  his  successors  have  attempted  to 
maintain.  Here  was  given  the  first  performance 
on  any  stage  of  a  play  by  an  Indiana  man  — 
Theodore  Dreiser  —  a  play,  too,  that  seemed  in 

79 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

theory  impossible.  Mr.  Dreiser's  volume  of  origi- 
nal pieces,  Plays  of  the  Natural  and  Supernatural, 
seems  to  me  so  superior  in  every  way  to  the  major- 
ity of  his  novels,  that  I  wish  he  were  only  a  play- 
wright. This  particular  experiment  was  Laughing 
Gas,  put  on  in  191 6.  According  to  Mr.  Oliver  M. 
Sayler,  who  wrote  a  long  account  of  the  perform- 
ance in  the  Boston  Transcript  for  December  22, 
1916,  "the  achievement  in  the  effective  production 
of  Laughing  Gas  amounts  to  the  vivid  presentation 
simultaneously  on  the  same  stage  in  alternate  epi- 
sodes and  rhythms  of  both  the  natural  and  the 
supernatural."  Mr.  Dreiser  deserves  credit  for 
having  written  one  of  the  most  original  plays  of 
the  twentieth  century ;  and  the  Little  Theatre  of 
Indianapolis  deserves  credit  for  successfully  sur- 
mounting apparently  insurmountable  obstacles  in 
the  performance.  I  would  give  much  to  have  seen 
it. 

One  of  the  hopeful  signs  of  the  times  is  the  Settle- 
ment Theatre,  of  v/hich  the  most  significant  is  at 
Hull  House,  Chicago.  The  players  were  organised 
as  far  back  as  1900,  and  the  interest  has  never 
waned.  They  have  produced  plays  covering  dra- 
matic history  from  Ben  Jonson  to  Barrie.  Possibly 
their  highest  point  was  reached  with  Galsworthy's 
Justice,  given  in  loii,  long  before  Americans  had 
any  opportunity  to  see  it  on  the  professional  stage. 

80 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

A  gentleman  who  has  studied  the  modern  drama  for 
years  wrote  me  on  the  night  of  April  26,  191 1,  "I 
have  just  come  back  from  Hull  House  .  .  .  where 
I  went  to  see  a  performance  of  Galsworthy's  Justice. 
It  was  one  of  the  most  astounding  presentations 
I  have  ever  seen.  .  .  .  The  acting  of  the  parts  — 
by  the  members  of  the  various  Hull  House  Clubs 
—  was  wonderful." 

The  publisher,  Mr.  Roland  Holt,  who  has  been 
actively  identified  with  the  Drama  League,  and 
who  has  made  a  special  study  of  the  independent 
theatre  in  America,  says  that  there  are  now  (June, 
1 91 8)  sixty  Little  Theatres  in  the  United  States. 
I  will  quote  the  rest  of  his  recently  delivered  speech, 
word  for  word,  because  it  proves  two  things :  first 
that  there  are  to-day  many  opportunities  to  hear 
good  plays,  if  one  will  look  for  them ;  second,  that 
if  a  large  body  of  theatre-goers  should  follow  Mr. 
Holt's  example,  the  business  of  the  regular  Broad- 
way entertainment  might  be  considerably  notched. 

In  my  own  case,  I  have  spent  twenty-one  evenings  in 
the  thirty-eight  weeks  since  the  middle  of  August  at  inde- 
pendent theatres,  against  twenty-five  at  Broadway  shows. 
Six  of  these  evenings  were  at  the  Washington  Square 
Players,  who,  to  my  thinking  at  least,  are  the  most  hopeful 
and  important  movement  on  our  American  stage.  I  have 
to  thank  them  for  plays  by  Shaw  and  Benevente,  by  O'Neill 
and  Glaspell.  I  gave  four  evenings  to  Miss  Grace  Gris- 
wold's  Theatre  Workshop,  the  most  ideal  plan  of  them  all, 
o  81 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

and  enjoyed  plays  by  Synge  and  Bjomson ;  three  evenings 
at  the  Neighborhood  Theatre  in  Grand  Street  gave  me  the 
Wisconsin  Players  in  their  own  plays,  and  other  actors  in 
Browning  and  Dunsany;  four  evenings  at  Mr.  Conroy's 
Greenwich  Village  Theatre  included  Schnitzler,  Hewlett, 
and  one  of  O'Neill's  masterly  sea  plays.  My  other  inde- 
pendent evenings  included  one  at  the  Vieux  Colombier, 
one  at  the  Provincetown  Players,  a  Sunday  night  benefit 
performance  of  three  war  plays,  one  at  Northampton's 
deHghtful  Municipal  Theatre,  and  one  with  plays  by 
Schnitzler  and  Marjorie  Patterson  (whose  Pierrot  the 
Prodigal  we've  all  enjoyed)  at  the  tiny  Vagabond  Playhouse 
in  Baltimore,  which  seats  less  than  seventy. 

I  was  pleased  by  a  visit  to  the  Laboratory 
Theatre  of  the  Carnegie  Institute  at  Pittsburg 
in  April,  191 7.  This  is  a  beautiful  auditorium, 
with  adjoining  workshops  where  everything  con- 
cerned with  the  art  of  acting  and  the  art  of  stage- 
presentation  may  be  effectively  studied.  The 
Institute  gives  the  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts  in  the 
Drama,  and  the  productions  include  specimens  from 
the  whole  range  of  dramatic  Hterature,  ancient  and 
contemporary.  Graduates  of  this  school  may  raise 
the  standard  of  professional  acting  in  America. 

Before  speaking  of  the  contribution  to  the 
advance  of  the  drama  made  by  our  universities, 
it  is  well  to  pay  homage  to  an  American  who  I 
think  has  never  received  anything  like  sufficient 
credit  for  his  services.     This  is  Franklin  Sargent, 

82 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

head  of  the  American  Academy  of  Dramatic  Arts, 
in  New  York.  The  college  revivals  of  Elizabethan 
plays,  which  have  become  a  feature  of  extra- 
curriculum  activities  in  every  quarter  of  the 
United  States,  had  their  origin  and  impulse  in  a 
performance  of  Ben  Jonson's  Silent  Woman,  given 
in  the  winter  of  1894-1895  by  the  pupils  of  Mr. 
Sargent,  and  under  his  direction.  Since  that  epoch- 
making  night,  he  has  not  only  revived  many  old 
plays,  but  given  New  Yorkers  their  only  oppor- 
tunity to  see  some  famous  modern  ones,  like  Tol- 
stoi's Power  of  Darkness  and  Becque's  Les  Corbeaux. 
Furthermore  he  frequently  stages  pieces  by  Amer- 
ican authors. 

Among  the  large  number  of  American  university 
professors  who  have  stimulated  interest  in  the 
theatre,  one  man  will  be  universally  recognised  as 
deserving  first  mention  —  Professor  George  Pierce 
Baker,  of  Harvard.  His  famous  course  in  play- 
writing,  to  which  it  is  a  signal  honour  to  be  admitted 
as  a  student,  is  eminently  practical ;  and  the 
laboratory  performances  of  the  plays  give  oppor- 
tunities for  the  art  of  acting,  the  art  of  presentation, 
and  the  art  of  criticism.  I  can  only  wonder  at  the 
ability  of  Professor  Baker  to  endure  the  prodigious 
labour  involved  by  the  direction  of  the  Harvard 
Workshop,  but  he  ought  to  be  satisfied  by  the 
splendid  results  achieved.    His  pupils  carry  back 

83 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

with  them  to  their  homes  in  every  part  of  America 
a  fine  enthusiasm  for  the  theatre,  which  appears 
in  many  different  directions.  Some  of  the  prize 
plays  have  been  seen  on  the  metropolitan  stage; 
and  among  his  former  students  are  successful  play- 
wrights Hke  Edward  Sheldon,  Edward  Knoblauch, 
Jules  Goodman,  and  Josephine  Peabody.  In  1918 
two  volumes  of  Harvard  Plays  were  published,  with 
valuable  editorial  comment  by  the  Master  of  the 
Show. 

One  of  the  immediate  outgrowths  of  the  Harvard 
Idea  was  the  laboratory  theatre  at  Dartmouth, 
where,  in  the  summer,  under  the  direction  of 
Mr.  Jack  Crawford  of  Yale,  a  number  of  interesting 
plays  are  given. 

Courses  on  contemporary  drama  are  now  a 
regular  part  of  the  curriculum  in  most  American 
universities;  and  to  supply  the  students  with 
material,  many  collections  of  modern  plays  have 
been  published.  The  object  of  these  courses  is  not 
to  train  playwrights,  hut  to  train  audiences.  It  is 
to  give  to  the  young  men  an  unquenchable  thirst 
for  good  drama,  so  that  they  will  be  satisfied  only 
with  the  best.  Nearly  every  college  graduate  is  a 
theatre-goer ;  hence  the  development  of  good  taste 
and  critical  ability  is  a  legitimate  and  important 
part  of  a  college  education. 

In  addition  to  the  work  done  in  college  courses, 
84 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

there  is,  in  many  universities,  a  student  Dramatic 
Association,  whose  extra-curriculum  activity  is 
confined  to  the  presentation  and  acting  of  high-class 
drama.  One  of  the  first  and  most  important  of 
these  is  the  Yale  University  Dramatic  Association, 
founded  by  Harry  D.  Wescott  in  1899 ;  its  con- 
stitution has  been  copied  in  many  other  places. 
The  object  of  the  Yale  players  is  to  produce  only 
dramas  that,  first,  belong  to  literature,  and  second, 
cannot  as  a  rule  be  seen  on  the  professional  stage. 
(The  so-called  Dramatic  Societies  in  our  universities 
that  produce  musical  burlesques  and  farces  written 
by  students  have  no  place  in  this  book,  and  it  is  my 
opinion  they  should  have  no  place  in  any  institu- 
tion of  learning,  as  their  efforts  represent  a  sheer 
waste  of  time.)  Among  the  plays  produced  by  the 
Yale  Association  for  the  first  time  in  American 
history,  are  Thomas  Heywood's  Fair  Maid  of  the 
West;  Shakespesire's  TroiJus  a7id  Cressida ;  Gogol's 
Revizor  (first  time  anywhere  in  English) ;  Ibsen's 
Pretenders  (first  time  anywhere  in  English) ;  curi- 
ously enough,  William  Archer,  who  wrote  the 
translation,  had  never  had  any  opportunity  to 
hear  it  on  the  stage  until  the  Y^ale  performance, 
when  he  happened  to  be  in  America.  Among  other 
plays  infrequently  produced,  the  Yale  Association 
gave  Shakespeare's  King  Henry  IV,  Part  I,  Oliver 
Goldsmith's  The  Good-Natured  Man,  Goldoni's  The 

85 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

Fan,  and  the  old  Second  Shepherd's  Play.  Student- 
members  of  the  association  who  afterwards  became 
identified  with  the  professional  stage  are  Charles 
Hopkins,  the  Director  of  the  Punch  and  Judy 
Theatre  in  New  York ;  Maxwell  Parry,  a  member 
of  the  Washington  Square  Players;  Thomas 
Achelis,  who  appeared  in  the  New  York  presenta- 
tion of  Edward  Sheldon's  Romance;  and  Charles 
Templeton  Crocker,  who  wrote  one  of  the  plays 
for  the  Bohemian  Club  in  San  Francisco. 


86 


IV 

THE  BIBLE  AND  POETRY  ON  THE  STAGE 

Recrudescence  of  the  Mystery  Play  —  the  Bible  on  the  modern 
stage  —  Salome  —  Joseph  and  his  Brethren  —  The  Book  of  Job 
—  Moralitj'  Plays  —  revival  of  Everyman  —  results  of  this  — 
possibility  of  modern  verse  drama  —  Stephen  Phillips  —  Con- 
tinental poetic  drama  —  the  opportunity. 

One  interesting  feature  of  twentieth  century- 
drama  has  been  the  notable  increase  in  the  use  of 
the  Bible  as  dramatic  material.  This  is  a  curious 
recrudescence  of  the  Mystery  Play  —  a  return  to 
the  origins  of  the  modern  theatre.  Our  modern 
drama  began  in  mediaeval  times  by  the  introduc- 
tion into  the  liturgical  church  service  of  some  epi- 
sode taken  from  the  Bible.  Out  of  this  developed 
the  Mysteries,  many  survivals  of  which  can  be 
found  to-day  in  Spain,  Mexico,  and  other  countries, 
whilst  the  most  remarkable  of  all  is  of  course  the 
Passion  Play  of  Oberammergau,  given  every  tenth 
year.  Whether  the  large  number  —  and  they  are 
surprisingly  numerous  —  of  modern  "passion 
plays"  has  had  anything  to  do  with  the  growing 
use  of  the  Bible  as  quarry  for  the  dramatist,  I  do 
not  know ;  possibly  just  the  contrary  is  a  stronger 

87 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

factor,  I  mean  the  secularisation  of  the  Sacred 
Books.  Whatever  the  cause,  the  fact  is  that  Mys- 
tery Plays  have  come  to  life  again,  and  many 
modern  playwrights  simply  take  a  story  from  the 
Bible,  add  or  subtract  as  they  please,  and  a  new 
play  is  born. 

One  of  the  first  of  these,  one  of  the  most  famous, 
and  one  that  still  holds  the  boards,  is  Salome,  by 
Oscar  Wilde,  1893.  This  was  written  in  French 
for  Sarah  Bernhardt.  The  censor  forbade  its 
production  in  London,  but  it  has  since  appeared 
in  many  languages  on  the  European  and  American 
stage;  its  renown  was  increased  and  accelerated 
in  operatic  form.  The  play  is  a  powerful  work  of 
genius,  and  when  competently  staged  and  acted 
exceedingly  impressive.  It  was  shortly  followed  by 
Sudermann's  Johannes  (1898)  at  first  forbidden  in 
Berlin  as  sacrilegious !  Straining  at  gnats  and 
swallowing  camels  seems  to  be  one  of  the  character- 
istics of  the  Teutonic  mind.  Meanwhile  in  1897 
Rostand  produced  in  Paris  his  beautiful  La  Samari- 
taine:  Evangile  en  trois  tableaux.  This  has  had  a 
number  of  Holy  Week  revivals,  and  was  played 
by  Mme.  Bernhardt  in  New  York.  At  about  the 
same  year  in  the  twentieth  century  Maeterlinck  the 
Belgian  and  Heyse  the  German  each  wrote  a  play 
on  Mary  Magdalene;  Mrs.  Fiske  appeared  in 
America  in  Heyse's  drama,  and  Maeterlinck's  was 

88 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

produced  at  the  New  Theatre.  In  France,  Antoine 
staged  at  the  Odeon  the  story  of  Esther,  perhaps 
the  most  dramatic  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament; the  French  version  unfortunately  was 
merely  a  gorgeous,  bloody  melodrama.  Ella 
Wheeler  Wilcox  has  written  a  play  on  the  same 
theme,  but  the  really  great  tragedy  imprisoned  in 
the  old  text  has  not  yet  emerged.  Stephen 
Phillips's  successful  Herod  may  properly  be  called 
a  Bible  play.  Louis  Parker  made  a  highly  inter- 
esting spectacle  out  of  Joseph  and  His  Brethren, 
which  had  a  long  run  in  New  York ;  the  American 
poet,  Richard  Burton,  v/rote  a  play  Rahah,  which 
was  produced  in  Chicago ;  John  Masefield  has 
recently  published  Good  Friday ;  while  one  of  the 
most  interesting  dramatic  performances  in  New 
York  in  1918  was  Stuart  Walker's  The  Book  of  Job. 
In  this  striking  performance,  both  the  poetic  lan- 
guage and  the  dramatic  situations  obtained  their 
full  value  —  so  far  as  was  possible  on  the  stage  — 
while  the  amount  of  legitimate  humour  in  the  old 
book  was  revealed  to  many  for  the  first  time. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  we  are  to  behold  an  increas- 
ing number  of  BibHcal  plays ;  one  can  find  plenty 
of  good  material  in  the  Apocrypha. 

The  immense  success  of  Ben  Greet's  production 
of  Everyman,  with  Miss  Edith  Wynne  Mathison 
as  Death,  not  only  gave  modem  audiences  some 
89 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATER 

notion  of  what  the  effect  of  that  Morality  Play  must 
have  been  on  devout  believers  centuries  ago,  but 
led  to  the  writing  of  a  number  of  religious  plays, 
somewhat  akin  to  the  old  Moralities,  of  which  the 
two  most  famous  are  The  Servant  in  the  House 
and  The  Passing  of  the  Third  Floor  Back.  Less 
successful  were  attempts  to  write  straight  modern 
Moralities,  like  Everywoman  and  Experience,  the 
latter  of  which  is  sadly  oversentimentalised.  If 
Bernard  Shaw's  Androcles  and  the  Lion  is  not 
religious,  his  Preface  assuredly  is. 

As  to  the  often-discussed  question  of  the  possi- 
bility of  acting  modern  English  plays  in  verse, 
nothing  important  can  be  said  for  or  against  in  the 
abstract.  If  a  genius  appears  who  elects  the  verse- 
form,  we  shall  all  see  another  illustration  of  Kip- 
ling's phrase,  ''when  the  thing  that  couldn't  has 
occurred."  Our  greatest  English  dramatic  tradi- 
tion is  verse ;  and  when  the  properly- trained  com- 
pany appears,  we  find  nothing  artificial  or  difl&cult 
in  Shakespeare's  poetry  on  the  stage.  In  the 
nineteenth  century,  Tennyson  wrote  most  of  his 
plays  in  verse,  and  their  failure  was  not  due  to  their 
form.  Browning's  Blot  in  the  ^Scutcheon,  and  In  a 
Balcony,  are  decidedly  convincing  when  well  acted ; 
they  stand  out  bright  in  my  memory.  Miss  Pea- 
body's  The  Piper  is  one  of  the  most  successful 
plays  in  English  of  our  century ;    and  the  verse- 

90 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

form  gave  the  audience  no  trouble,  because  it 
troubled  the  actors  not  at  all. 

When  Stephen  Phillips's  drama  Herod  was  origi- 
nally produced  in  London  in  1900,  many  believed 
that  the  dawn  of  the  poetry-play  had  begun.  "It 
will  take  oysters  and  champagne  to  recover  from 
this,"  a  hardened  theatre-goer  remarked  between 
the  acts.  One  of  our  best  American  critics,  John 
Corbin,  writing  from  London  to  Harpefs  Weekly, 
started  off  by  saying,  "To  imagine  that  one  has 
seen  the  dawning  of  a  new  and  brighter  day  in 
art  or  in  Hterature  is  easy  —  dangerously  easy ; 
but  in  witnessing  the  performance  of  Mr.  Stephen 
Phillips's  Herod  it  is  perhaps  more  difficult  to 
persuade  oneself  that  one  has  not.  I  do  not  use 
the  words  lightly.  A  nev/  day  in  the  poetical 
drama  of  England  means  something  that  has  not 
been  witnessed  since  the  decay  of  the  School  of 
Shakespeare.  There  have  been  plays  in  verse  and 
to  spare  from  Dryden  to  Sheridan  Knowles  —  or 
let  us  say  to  Comyns  Carr ;  but  I  do  not  know  of 
any  of  them  that  has  revealed  a  genuine  poet  of  the 
stage." 

Later,  in  the  year  1909, 1  witnessed  in  America  a 
memorable  performance  of  Herod  by  William 
Faversham  and  JuHe  Opp ;  the  full  beauty  of  the 
lines  was  rendered,  and  the  whole  production 
generously  splendid.    There  were  not  a  few  dra- 

91 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

matic  moments.  I  should  like  to  see  it  again. 
Yet  we  know  now  that  Mr.  Phillips  was  neither 
the  morning-star  nor  the  sunrise ;  it  was  another 
case  of  false  dawn.  And  the  reason?  Simply 
because  Stephen  Phillips  was  more  poet  than 
dramatist. 

It  does  seem  strange  when  we  consider  first,  that 
the  glory  of  the  English  language  is  its  poetry,  that 
English  writers  have  contributed  to  the  literature 
of  the  world  more  high  class  poetry  than  that  sup- 
plied from  any  other  nation,  that  the  greatest 
dramatist  in  all  history  was  an  English  poet ;  and 
second,  that  the  most  famous  play  by  a  contem- 
porary Frenchman  and  by  a  contemporary  German 
is  in  each  case  in  verse  —  Cyrano  de  Bergerac  and 
Die  versunkene  Glocke  —  that  we  cannot  have 
successful  serious  English  plays  in  the  poetic  form. 

It  may  be  that  the  Great  War  will  inspire  some 
now  unknown  dramatist  to  write  some  colossal 
verse  drama.  Thomas  Hardy,  in  The  Dynasts, 
created  a  poetic  drama  of  epic  grandeur,  and  Gran- 
ville Barker  put  some  of  it  on  the  stage ;  but  it  can 
hardly  be  called  a  stage-play.  Now  out  of  this 
war,  so  much  more  universal  in  its  reach  than  the 
Napoleonic  struggle,  some  genius  ought  to  find  a 
subject  made  to  his  hand.  I  respectfully  request 
those  who  attempt  the  task  not  to  send  me  their 
productions  in  manuscript. 

92 


SHAKESPEARE  ON  THE   MODERN  STAGE 

Shakespeare  on  the  modern  stage  —  the  love  of  children 
for  Shakespeare  —  his  influence  on  uncultivated  minds  —  the 
"Old  Vic."  —  Japanese  performance  and  criticism  of  Othello  — 
realism  in  Shakespeare's  dialogue  —  the  tercentenary  year  in 
New  York  —  Richard  Mansfield  —  Salvini  —  the  New  Theatre 
production  of  Winter's  Tale  —  Robert  Manteil  —  Shakespeare 
on  the  art  of  acting  —  Hamlet  —  necessity  of  trained  companies. 

The  best  comedies  and  tragedies  of  William 
Shakespeare  will  always  hold  the  stage,  because 
they  are  the  most  interesting  and  the  most  dramatic 
plays  in  the  history  of  literature.  Any  child  old 
enough  to  talk  will  enjoy  them;  and  no  octo- 
genarian can  outgrow  them.  All  cliildren  should 
be  brought  up  on  Shakespeare ;  they  should  read 
him  in  the  original,  not  in  a  novelised  form.  I  had 
read  every  one  of  his  plays  before  I  was  twelve 
years  old.  My  taste  at  that  time  was  not  par- 
ticularly discriminating,  for  I  thought  his  master- 
piece was  Titus  Andro7iicus.  I  liked  that  melo- 
drama because,  in  the  twentieth  century  vernacular, 
it  had  the  "punch."  I  used  to  talk  about  Shake- 
speare with  my  aunt  every  morning;  she  rose  at 
the  voice  of  the  bird,  and  we  used  to  discuss  Shake- 

93 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

speare  from  five  until  seven.  I  remember  her 
saying  that  Shakespeare  had  a  profound  knowledge 
of  the  human  heart.  That  remark  made  little 
impression  on  me,  for  at  that  time  I  knew  and  cared 
nothing  about  the  human  heart;  all  I  knew  was 
that  Shakespeare  was  the  greatest  teller  of  stories 
that  I  had  ever  read,  and  that  his  characters  were 
interesting  folks.  If  older  persons  would  discuss 
Shakespeare  with  children,  they  would  help  to 
educate  the  young,  and  they  would  receive  much 
independent  and  original  Shakespearean  criticism. 
Furthermore,  children  should  be  taken  to  Shake- 
speare performances  —  on  the  few  occasions  when 
such  things  happen  —  at  a  tender  age.  I  was  not 
permitted  to  go  to  the  theatre  until  I  was  eighteen ; 
and  although  my  first  experience  was  an  atrocious 
performance  of  Macbeth  by  Thomas  W.  Keene, 
who  slid  around  the  stage  as  though  he  were  on 
roller  skates,  I  enjoyed  it  unspeakably,  and  learned 
much.  The  first  time  I  witnessed  Hamlet  the 
melancholy  prince  was  interpreted  by  the  worst 
actor  in  the  world,  the  ex-Rev.  George  C.  Miln, 
of  Chicago.  He  copiously  illustrated  every  fault 
mentioned  in  Hamlet's  advice  to  the  players,  and 
yet  even  through  that  caricature  many  things  in  the 
play  that  had  previously  seemed  to  me  confused 
became  clear  and  stimulating. 

I   believe   that   even   on   uncultivated   natures 
94 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

Shakespeare  makes  a  deeper  impression  than  any 
other  dramatist.  A  number  of  years  ago  Mr. 
Sothern  and  Mr.  Mansfield  simultaneously  pre- 
sented a  Shakespearean  play  in  New  York ;  Sothern 
appeared  in  Hamlet,  Mansfield  in  Julius  Ccesar. 
I  wrote  an  article  about  them  in  The  Independent, 
and  a  short  time  after,  I  received  the  following 
letter,  which  I  here  transcribe  verbatim  ei  literatim ; 
omitting  only  the  name  of  the  man  and  that  of 
the  town  from  which  he  wrote. 

— ,  Alabama,  3-23-1903. 
To  Professor  Lampson: 

While  at  my  leasure  our  to  day  I  chance  to  read  the 
Independent  Weekly  Magazine  and  I  seen  a  sketch  of  a 
play  that  I  seen  about  1 2  years  a  go  at  the  capital  Theater 
in  Little  Rock  ark  and  it  is  my  desire  to  read  it  over  What 
win  the  three  acts  cost  me  and  can  I  purchas  them  from  you 
are  can  you  are  rather  will  you  let  me  no  what  house  I  cap 
get  it  from  and  the  cost  of  it  excuse  me  the  name  of  the  play 
was  Hamlets.  At  pres  I  works  in  the  office  of  the  L  &  N. 
CO  but  have  some  knowledge  of  the  play  and  if  I  get  it  I 
and  several  others  wiU  take  a  part  and  see  what  and  amt  we 
can  make  in  little  towns  please  let  me  no  in  Return  mail 
and  oblige 

Tolstoi  might  have  cancelled  his  book  on  Shake- 
speare had  he  seen  this  letter.  For  here  is  a  man 
who  knew  nothing  of  Shakespeare's  reputation, 
who  had  no  idea  what  he  ought  to  like  or  ought 
not  to  like,  but  who,  after  the  lapse  of  twelve  years, 

95 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

remembered  with  pleasure  a  performance  of 
Hamlet.  I  hope  he  acted  in  it,  and  I  would  have 
paid  any  price  for  a  ticket ;  this  man  and  his  com- 
pany would  have  given  us  an  interpretation  quite 
untrammelled  by  tradition. 

And  how  many  times  have  I  wished  that  I  might 
see  a  Shakespeare  play  without  knowing  the  plot ! 
One  September  night  in  1890,  I  sat  in  the  gallery 
at  Birmingham,  England,  and  enjoyed  Wilson 
Barrett's  playing  of  Hamlet  through  the  minds  of 
my  companions,  who  were  all  unskilled  labourers. 
They  had  no  idea  how  the  play  was  "coming  out" 
(how  I  envied  them !)  and  they  followed  it  with 
breathless  attention.  When  Hamlet  caught  the 
King  at  prayer,  one  of  them  whispered  "Now  he's 
going  to  kill  him!"  and  his  disappointment  at 
Hamlet's  flimsy  reasoning  was  plain  to  see.  Once 
sitting  in  the  top  gallery  at  a  performance  of  Romeo 
and  Juliet,  I  had  an  opportunity  to  see  what  havoc 
Mercutio  can  make  in  a  gentle  bosom.  The  gallant 
gentleman  was  borne  off  dying,  and  in  a  moment 
Romeo  rushed  on  seeking  revenge.  As  the  young 
hero  attacked  Tybalt,  a  girl  near  me  ejaculated, 
"I  hope  he  kills  him!"  She  was  shaking  with 
excitement,  for  like  all  of  us,  she  loved  Mercutio. 
I  wish  that  Walter  De  La  Mare  could  have  heard 
her. 

The  "Old  Vic,"  at  Newington  Butts,  London  — 
96 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTITRY  THEATRE 

famous  spot  in  the  history  of  the  British  stage  — 
after  all  kinds  of  vicissitudes,  gave  many  Shake- 
speare performances  in  the  twentieth  century  under 
the  management  of  Ben  Greet ;  the  wild  enthusiasm 
of  the  uncultivated  audience  was  a  refreshing 
spectacle  both  to  actors  and  critics. 

Early  in  the  twentieth  century  there  was  a 
Japanese  performance  of  Othello  in  Tokio,  given  by  a 
famous  local  company  that  had  returned  from  a 
European  tour.  It  is  interesting  to  see  how  Shake- 
speare's tragedy,  acted  by  Japanese  players  in  the 
Japanese  language,  affected  a  native  audience,  who 
judged  it  apart  from  our  literary  standards.  The 
regular  dramatic  critic  published  a  long  account  of 
it  in  a  Japanese  paper,  dated  February  25,  1903, 
which  has  been  translated  for  me  by  a  Japanese 
friend. 

OTHELLO  AT  THE  MEIJI-ZA 

It  must  be  acknowledged  that  Othello,  recently  performed 
at  the  Meiji-Za  has,  to  a  certain  extent,  satisfied  the  thirst 
of  the  pleasure  seekers  of  the  whole  city.  .  .  .  We  fully 
appreciate  the  noble  effort  resulting  in  the  selection  of  one 
of  old  Shakespeare's  four  great  tragedies,  the  stage  repre- 
sentation of  which,  evincing  as  it  did  the  thoughtfulness  and 
care  on  the  part  of  those  who  took  part  in  it,  was  received 
with  satisfaction,  though  partial,  by  the  spectators.  .  .  . 

In  short,  the  Kawakami  company  has  brought  home 
from  Europe  such  stage  outfits  as  our  eyes  had  never  be- 

H  97 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

held,  in  order  to  present  to  us,  with  the  cream  of  the  actors 
and  the  actresses  of  the  new  school,  the  great  tragedy,  Othello. 
Of  Shakespeare's  great  tragedies,  Othello  is,  indeed,  the  only 
one  that  can  be  easily  made  over  into  a  play  appreciable  by 
our  national  habit  of  life.  Even  then,  it  includes  a  great 
deal  of  the  Christian  ideas  and  thoughts  more  or  less  strange 
to  us,  and  the  customs  of  those  days  were  very  different  from 
to-day.  It  wlU  be  interesting,  therefore,  to  follow  Kawa- 
kami  and  his  assistants  in  their  efforts  to  overcome  these 
difficulties. 

.  .  .  the  occidental  tone  has  been  by  no  means  wholly 
got  rid  of :  ...  the  marriage  of  Desdemona  and  Lieuten- 
ant-General  Othello  in  the  little  chapel  after  she  had  run 
away  from  her  father's  house,  all  of  which  goes  by  the  name 
love  and  its  sacredness:  "Have  you  prayed  to-night?" 
being  Othello's  words  spoken  to  Desdemona  on  the  night 
of  the  murder:  his  most  extravagant  cries  of  anguish 
when  he  learned  the  innocence  of  his  wife,  whom  Emilia 
called  an  angel  —  all  these  were  bound  to  arouse  the  feel- 
ing of  strangeness  in  the  minds  of  our  spectators. 

Nay,  more  in  the  European  play,  as  a  rule,  speeches 
play  the  most  important  r61e  in  contrast  with  gestures  in 
ours.  The  success  of  the  performance  is  measured  by  the 
degree  of  skill  by  which  emotions  are  expressed  by  the 
speeches.  The  translated  Othello,  due  to  the  original,  of 
course,  is  rich  in  long  speeches.  One  of  the  best  illustra- 
tions of  this  is  lago's  seducing  speech  to  the  Lieutenant- 
General  in  the  garden.  The  subtlety  of  the  art  involved 
in  this  part  is  one  of  those  points  in  the  whole  play  that  de- 
serves a  keenest  attention.  Yet,  some  spectators  called 
it  too  tedious  for  the  simple  reason  that  speeches  are  not  so 
interesting  to  them  a?  gestures  to  which  they  are  more 

98 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

accustomed.  He  also  observes  that  the  general  makes  a 
nice  long  speech  just  before  he  murders  his  loved  wife,  when, 
were  one  of  us  in  his  place,  the  boiling  breast  and  the  burst- 
ing heart  would  have  actually  struck  the  very  tongue  speech- 
less. The  quick-tempered  Japanese  race  could  never  tol- 
erate this :  .  .  .  such  rhythmical,  poetic  speeches  at  such 
moments  are  only  appreciated  by  the  Westerners,  whose 
emotional  backgrovmd  is  somewhat  different  from  ours. 

Another  thing:  the  European  tragedy  is  not  terrible 
enough  in  some  important  points.  Our  spectators  do  not 
feel  that  any  murder  has  been  committed  unless  they  are 
made  to  see  the  blood  fly,  flesh  torn  open,  screams  heard, 
and  contortions  and  writhings  take  place  generally.  Desde- 
mona's  death  is  too  easy.  To  be  sure,  there  are  the  surround- 
ings fitly  suggestive  of  sadness,  the  lonely  form  in  the  white 
nightgown,  the  dark  shadow  of  the  dim  lamp,  and  the  still- 
ness of  the  night  exaggerated  by  the  melancholy  tone  of 
the  music.  But  what  about  the  death  itself?  We  are 
only  p>ermitted  to  hear  one  faint  groan,  scarcely  audible,  as 
Desdemona  expires  in  her  high  bedchamber.  This  is,  too, 
the  last  we  see  of  her.  To  us,  whose  tears  of  sympathy  are 
accustomed  to  fall  generally  upon  the  visible  figure  of  the 
dead,  this  is  a  httle  too  easy. 

[The  acting  of  Emilia  made  a  tremendous  impression  on 
the  Japanese  audience.  Her  wild  grief  over  the  murder, 
her  wild  accusations  directed  at  Othello,  her  condemnation 
of  her  husband,  this  devotion  of  waiting  woman  to  mis- 
tress, seemed  to  impress  the  Japanese  particularly.] 

In  this  there  was  an  imspeakable  touch  of  reality  and 
made  us  all  feel  that  EmiUa  was,  after  all,  the  central  char- 
acter in  this  act  rather  than  Othello  or  lago. 

lago  is  the  evil  incarnate.    There  is  no  fixed  aim  in  his 


99 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

conduct  except  that  he  lives  to  do  evil.  .  .  ,  Evil  is  right- 
eousness with  him.  He  freely  murders:  he  freely  incites 
others  to  murder.  Day  in  and  day  out  the  scheme  to  hurt 
someone  is  constantly  on  his  mind.  Takata  Minoru  was 
certainly  the  right  person  to  act  this  part.  His  tallness 
and  his  thin  whiskers  even  added  much  to  his  fitness  to 
represent  the  character.  [Mention  is  then  made  of  his 
"detestable  sickening  smiles"  and  his  "false  tears."] 

.  .  .  Sada  Yasco's  personal  charm  and  natural  power 
to  please  added  much  to  the  brilliancy  of  the  stage.  In- 
stead of  the  complex  movements  all  that  is  required  of 
Desdemona  is  to  be  gentle  and  obedient. 

.  .  .  She  more  than  deserves  our  sympathy.  But,  in 
rashly  running  away  from  her  father's  house  to  wed  her 
lover  did  she  prove  the  gentleness  of  her  character  as  a 
woman,  though  be  it  that  the  original  drama  is  largely 
responsible  for  this? 

.  .  .  Othello's  language,  on  the  whole,  is  too  rich.  His 
words  employed  to  relate  the  love  affair  existing  between 
him  and  Desdemona  at  the  council  held  in  the  prime  min- 
ister's house  are  too  poetical  and  unbecoming  to  the  mouth 
of  the  coarse,  sunburnt  soldier  that  he  is.  The  simple  pro- 
vincial language  would  have  been  much  better.  His  speech 
before  the  murder,  we  repeat,  is  too  unnatural  and  tedious. 
Had  we  got  the  rhythm  of  the  language  in  which  it  was 
originally  written,  and  had  the  taste  of  the  spectators  been 
more  for  speeches  than  for  gestures  it  would  have  been 
proper  enough.  As  it  was,  the  charm  was  somewhat  re- 
duced. 

However,  there  is  a  tremendous  amount  of  courage 
in  the  actors'  attempt  to  harmonize  these  strange  elements 
with  our  national  habit.     With  the  exception  of  some  de- 


loo 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

tails,  they  were  eminently  successful.  The  failure  must 
be  said  to  be  largely  due  to  the  half-Japonized  translation 
itself  on  which  the  play  was  based.  This  fact  that  the 
whole  thing  is  the  conglomeration  of  things  European  with 
things  Japanese  is  shown  by  the  keeping  of  the  name  of  the 
play  in  its  original  form,  Othello,  while  all  the  characters  have 
been  made  over  into  Japanese. 

Thus  on  ignorant  English  and  Americans,  and  on 
cultivated  Orientals,  Shakespeare  makes  a  deep  im- 
pression. The  Japanese  criticism  that  Othello's  lan- 
guage is  "too  rich,"  and  their  dislike  of  the  famous 
speech  at  the  council,  which  has  been  mouthed  by 
every  Anglo-Saxon  schoolboy,  is  an  objection  — 
sometimes  consciously,  sometimes  unconsciously 
felt  by  persons  farther  West.  It  is  an  objection 
based  on  the  desire  for  realism  in  language  as  well 
as  in  psychology.  Tolstoi's  curious  book  on 
Shakespeare  is  written  from  the  standpoint  of  a 
realistic  novelist.  Tolstoi  declared  that  Shake- 
speare was  not  only  not  first  class,  he  was  not  even 
second  or  third  class ;  he  is  I  think  the  only  writer 
of  reputation  who  has  maintained  that  the  original 
stories  from  which  Shakespeare  drew  his  plays  are 
better  than  the  plays  themselves ;  and  he  selects 
as  one  of  the  worst  dramas  of  Shakespeare,  King 
Lear.  Tolstoi  said  he  had  repeatedly  tried  to  argue 
this  matter  with  intelligent  men,  but  such  was  their 
slavery  to  convention,  they  would  not  even  discuss 

lOI 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

the  subject  with  him;  that  he  had  attempted  to 
prove  to  Turgenev  that  Shakespeare  was  not  a 
great  writer,  and  Turgenev  had  refused  to  answer ; 
he  had  merely  turned  sadly  away.  One  reason 
why  Tolstoi  could  not  understand  or  appreciate 
Shakespeare  was  because  of  a  certain  perversity ; 
he  did  not  possess  the  blessed  gift  of  admiration. 
He  disliked  to  hear  any  famous  author  praised; 
and  he  loved  to  attack  majority  opinion.  But 
there  is  more  to  it  than  this.  He  judged  Shake- 
speare's speeches  from  the  standpoint  of  realistic 
dialogue,  and  tried  thus,  they  are  of  course  absurd. 
A  famous  American  actor  once  prophesied  that 
soon  Shakespeare  would  be  banished  from  the  stage, 
and  that  he  deserved  to  be,  because  audiences 
would  feel  that  his  language  was  ridiculous. 

It  is  certainly  true  that  to-day  if  a  college  under- 
graduate should  be  told  by  his  roommate  that 
the  latter  had  last  night  seen  his  dead  father,  and 
that,  filled  with  curiosity,  he  should  accompany  his 
friend  to  the  platform  at  midnight,  and  the  ghost 
should  appear,  he  would  not  speak  a  dozen  lines  of 
beautiful  poetry, 

"  Angels  and  ministers  of  grace  defend  us  !  " 

If  he  were  able  to  say  anything  at  all,  he  might 
exclaim 

"  My  God,  it's  father  /  !" 

I02 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

Is  Shakespeare  right  then,  or  wrong  ?  Shakespeare 
is  right.  Neither  Hamlet  nor  any  other  human 
being  would  recite  poetry  at  a  crisis,  but  Shake- 
speare was  a  poetic  dramatist.  The  verse  reveals, 
as  no  other  diction  could  do,  the  exact  condition 
of  Hamlet's  amazed  and  bewildered  mind,  with  its 
thoughts  beyond  the  reaches  of  his  soul.  Shake- 
speare's splendid  poetry  is  there  true  to  life  in  a 
more  subtle  way ;  he  gives  us  the  interpretation 
of  Hamlet's  thoughts.  That  realistic  dramatist, 
Henry  Arthur  Jones,  maintains  that  Shakespeare's 
language  throughout  his  tragedies  and  comedies 
is  at  the  bottom  the  purest  realism. 

Although  Shakespeare  is  not  acted  in  New  York 
nearly  so  often  as  he  ought  to  be,  the  tercentenary 
year  191 6  is  memorable.  One  hundred  and  thirty- 
nine  performances  of  Shakespeare  were  given  in 
the  metropolis.  The  list  was  headed  by  Hamlet, 
which  enjoyed  thirty-five  representations,  owing 
principally  to  the  presence  of  Forbes  Robertson. 
John  Drew  acted  thirty- three  times  in  Much  Ado 
about  Nothing.  Othello,  given  both  by  Forbes 
Robertson  and  by  William  Faversham,  appeared 
twenty  times ;  The  Merchant  of  Venice,  eighteen ; 
The  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  by  both  Julia  Marlowe 
and  Margaret  Anglin,  twelve ;  As  You  Like  It, 
eight;  Macbeth,  with  Sothern  and  Marlowe,  five; 
Romeo   and   Juliet,    four.     A    magnificent    scenic 

103 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

production  of  Macbeth  was  given  by  James  K. 
Hackett;  and  the  most  interesting  revival  of  the 
year  was  The  Tempest,  produced  by  Louis  Calvert 
and  John  Corbin,  in  which  the  former  took  the 
part  of  Prospero.  Here  one  of  my  dreams  was 
realised ;  tickets  were  sold  to  schoolchildren  at 
reduced  prices,  and  the  matinee  of  The  Tempest 
that  I  witnessed  was  graced  by  the  presence  of 
several  hundred  small  boys  and  girls,  whose  delight 
I  shall  never  forget. 

In  Germany  in  191 6  one  hundred  and  fifty  per- 
formances of  Shakespeare  were  given,  including 
twenty-three  of  his  plays.  One  hundred  and  ninety 
theatres  contributed  to  this  result,  and  the  list  of 
pieces  was  headed  by  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream. 

As  the  greatest  dramatist  in  history  was  an 
Englishman,  English-speaking  people  ought  to 
have  opportunities  not  only  to  see  the  chief  plays 
frequently,  but  at  some  time  or  another  to  see  them 
all.  Of  the  thirty-seven  dramas,  I  have  witnessed 
twenty-seven.  I  hope  before  death  I  shall  be  able 
to  reach  completion,  though  I  fear  it  will  be  a  long 
time  before  I  shall  have  a  chance  to  see  the  three 
parts  of  King  Henry  VI.  With  all  its  coarseness, 
Measure  for  Measure  is  a  good  play  on  the  stage ; 
but  I  do  not  think  Americans  have  had  any  oppor- 
tunity to  judge  of  this  since  the  days  of  Madame 
Modjeska. 

104 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

I  shall  have  something  to  say  about  actors  and 
acting  in  the  next  chapter ;  but  there  would  surely 
be  more  enthusiasm  for  Shakespeare  on  the  Ameri- 
can stage  if  he  were  adequately  presented.  Great 
actors  return  to  him  again  and  again,  unable  to 
resist  his  fascination.  But  great  actors  are  scarce. 
I  remember  sometime  in  the  nineteenth  century 
Richard  Mansfield  declaring  with  hot  emphasis, 
that  he  would  never,  never  act  Shakespeare  any 
more ;  yet  not  long  after  that  renunciation,  he 
produced  Henry  V  followed  by  Julius  Casar. 
We  must  have  properly  trained  actors ;  dress 
models  and  matinee  heroes  are  incapable.  The 
proper  reading  of  the  lines  —  so  that  they  shall  be 
dramatically  effective  without  losing  their  music  — 
is  very  rare,  and  it  may  become  a  lost  art.  Here  is 
where  the  actors  of  the  "old  school"  shone  to 
advantage,  and  we  must  go  back  to  their  methods. 
One  of  the  best  Shakespearean  actors  I  ever  heard 
was  Milnes  Levick,  who  used  to  appear  with 
Margaret  Mather.  As  Macbeth,  he  was  not  allowed 
to  do  his  best,  for  he  would  have  eclipsed  the  star ; 
but  as  Mercutio,  he  was  perfect.  His  rendition  of 
the  Queen  Mab  speech  —  one  of  the  most  severe 
tests  on  the  stage  —  was  marvellously  effective. 

There  is  at  present  no  truly  great  actor  who  is 
identified  with  Shakespeare  as  Booth  was  with 
Hamlet  or  Salvini  with  Othello.     Salvini's  career 

105 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

covered  an  amazing  span  of  years.  Mrs.  Browning, 
in  a  letter  written  in  1859,  speaks  enthusiastically 
of  his  acting,  which  she  had  just  witnessed ;  thirty 
years  later  at  one  of  his  appearances  in  London, 
the  Times  said,  "Conspicuous  among  the  people 
in  the  stalls  was  Robert  Browning,  standing  and 
waving  his  handkerchief  during  the  recalls." 
At  about  the  same  period,  I  had  the  satisfaction  of 
hearing  his  golden  voice  on  the  New  York  stage 
(I  can  hear  it  now) ;  and  he  lived  until  the  dawn  of 
the  tercentenary  year,  the  first  of  January,  1916 ! 

The  greatest  Cassius  I  ever  saw  was  Lawrence 
Barrett.  He  was  a  charming  man,  cultivated, 
intelligent,  full  of  amenity ;  he  always  did  his  best, 
and  squandered  money  on  expensive  revivals ; 
as  Cassius  he  rose  to  greatness.  The  incomparable 
Edwin  Booth  was  Brutus,  but  that  particular  night 
Cassius  dominated  the  stage.  It  was  a  severe  mis- 
fortune for  Shakespearean  productions  in  America 
that  the  New  Theatre  failed.  Those  who  have 
been  bored  over  and  over  again  by  stupid  per- 
formances of  Shakespeare,  felt  their  hearts  burn 
within  them  when  the  New  Theatre  company  gave 
Winter^ s  Tale.  There  was  not  a  single  dull  mo- 
ment; from  beginning  to  end,  the  audience  were 
thrilled.  I  am  glad  that  Louis  Calvert,  who 
directed  this  presentation,  has  become  an  American 
citizen ;  and  I  only  hope  that  his  plans  to  produce 

106 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

a  great  many  of  Shakespeare's  plays  a  great  many 
times,  may  be  realised. 

The  vacant  throne  of  Shakespearean  acting  is 
evidenced  by  the  rise  of  Robert  Mantell.  He 
pulled  himself  up  from  cheap  and  noisy  melodrama 
by  sheer  industry,  seeming  to  say  that  if  no  one  else 
wanted  to  present  the  tragedies  of  Shakespeare, 
he  would  do  it  himself.  And  while  the  highest 
reaches  of  subtlety,  poetry,  and  mystery  are  beyond 
his  range,  he  deserves  universal  credit  for  giving 
hundreds  and  thousands  of  Americans  opportunities 
to  hear  on  the  stage  the  words  of  the  ever-living 
poet.  He  has  given  me  my  only  opportunity 
to  see  King  John  and  King  Lear;  and  while 
no  one  has  ever  been  completely  successful  in 
the  role  of  Lear,  much  is  to  be  learned  from 
Mr.  Mantell's  interpretation;  and  his  King  John 
was  adequate. 

We  know  little  of  the  personal  character  and 
opinions  of  William  Shakespeare,  but  we  do  know 
his  ideas  about  acting,  of  how  an  actor  should 
comport  himself  on  the  stage,  and  how  the  actor 
should  interpret  his  part.  I  believe  that  Shake- 
speare was  really  a  better  actor  than  he  has  the 
reputation  of  being.  Ben  Jonson,  in  his  own 
edition  of  Every  Man  in  His  Humour,  places  his 
name  high  in  the  cast.  I  am  certain  he  was  not  a 
great  actor,  in  the  sense  that  his  contemporaries 

107 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

Richard  Burbage  and  Edward  Alleyn  were.  Great 
actors  find  it  difficult  to  teach  others.  They  can 
neither  explain  nor  transfer  the  secret  of  their  art. 
But  I  believe  that  in  Hamlet's  speech  to  the  players 
Shakespeare  not  only  wrote  out  some  of  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  good  acting  but  that  he  revealed 
something  of  his  personal  character.  He  evidently 
abhorred  rant,  exaggeration,  playing  to  the  gallery, 
merely  theatrical  effect;  and  he  must  have  loved 
unaffected  naturalness,  the  main  feature  of  the  art 
of  Duse.  Hamlet  tells  the  players  to  be  natural, 
to  be  sensible,  to  check  momentary  impulses,  and 
never  to  be  robustious.  The  voice  of  his  creator  is 
heard  to  the  same  effect  when  Hamlet  declares  that 
his  affection  for  Horatio  is  because  of  the  latter's 
self-control. 

Give  me  the  man  that  is  not  passion's  slave. 

I  remember  the  first  time  I  ever  heard  the  wonder- 
ful speech  of  Hamlet  to  his  mother  in  the  first  act 
spoken  by  an  intelligent  actor,  one  who  understood 
the  significance  of  the  language.  It  is  no  wonder 
that  Claudius  and  Gertrude  show  toward  the 
young  prince  a  nervous  hostility.  He  must  have 
constantly  got  on  their  nerves.  They  were  cele- 
brating royal  nuptials,  men  and  women  were  in 
gay  attire,  there  was  feasting  and  merrymaking. 
In  and  out  of  the  brilliant  assemblage  moved  that 

io8 


THE  TWENTIETH   CENTURY  THEATRE 

sombre,  silent,  sable  figure,  a  quiet  but  eloquent 
condemnation  of  everybody  and  everything.  The 
Queen,  apart  from  the  disturbance  caused  by  her 
conscience,  was  like  many  a  mother  with  a  bril- 
liant son ;  she  was  a  little  afraid  of  him.  In  timidly 
rebuking  him  she  happens  to  use  the  word  "seems." 
Now  the  manner  in  which  Hamlet  replies  is  the 
first  real  test  of  the  actor,  and  intelligent  people  in 
the  audience  know  instantly  whether  he  is  good, 
ordinary,  or  bad.  I  have  heard  actors  roar  this 
speech,  say  it  peevishly,  interrupt  it  with  sobs,  do 
everything  except  speak  the  words  like  a  gentleman. 
Never,  I  say,  shall  I  forget  the  time  when  I  first 
heard  them  spoken  with  sincerity  and  truth. 

And  I  am  ever  hoping  that  I  may  five  to  that 
evening  when  some  Cordelia  will  adequately  make 
what  I  suppose  is  the  greatest  response  among  all 
the  millions  of  responses  in  dramatic  literature : 

So  young,  and  so  untender  ?    So  young,  my  lord,  and  true. 

But  the  fact  is  that  for  an  ideal  performance  of 
Shakespeare,  every  part  should  be  taken,  not  by  a 
star  —  for  this  name  covers  a  multitude  of  sins  — 
but  by  a  carefully  trained  and  highly  intelligent 
actor.  The  late  Robert  Ingersoll  said  that  Shake- 
speare was  so  rich  in  thought  and  language  that 
he  gave  away  some  of  his  most  glorious  speeches 
to  fools,  when  any  other  author  would  have  saved 

109 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

them  up  for  his  best  leading  characters.    In  Twelfth 
Night  it  is  the  Clown  who  says : 

There  is  no  darkness  but  ignorance. 
This  Hne  alone  would  have  made  the  reputation  of 
any  other  writer,  but  Shakespeare  in  his  prodigality 
carelessly  tossed  it  into  the  mouth  of  a  clown. 


lie 


VI 

ACTORS  AND  ACTING 

Modern  actors  and  acting  —  William  Winter  —  influence  of 
Ibsen  —  George  Ade's  satire  —  the  Metropolitan  Opera  Com- 
pany —  Henry  Irving  in  melodrama  —  Richard  Mansfield  — 
his  ability  —  his  services  to  the  modern  drama  —  Maude  Adams 
—  her  presentation  of  works  of  genius  —  the  growth  of  her  am- 
bition —  Louis  Calvert  —  his  correspondence  with  Shaw  —  visits 
of  foreign  actors  —  two  Russians  —  how  long  do  actors  and 
actresses  live  ?  —  some  statistics  —  art  the  great  preservative. 

In  the  vitriolic  attacks  that  the  late  William 
Winter  made  in  the  twilight  of  his  life  on  the 
twentieth  century  theatre,  which  he  continually 
minimised  in  comparison  with  the  stage  of  his 
earHer  days,  it  often  seemed  to  me  that  he  confused 
playwriting  and  playacting.  Because  there  were 
no  actors  like  Salvini,  Ir\'ing,  and  Booth,  he  felt 
certain  that  the  drama  had  degenerated.  He  was  a 
scholarly,  well-documented,  experienced  dramatic 
critic ;  his  flag  of  idealism  he  never  lowered,  and 
finally  abandoned  his  profession  altogether  rather 
than  compromise.  But  somewhere  around  the  year 
1900,  the  gates  of  his  mind  closed.  For  the  rest  of 
his  life  he  fed  upon  his  memories,  and  as  he  had  a 
richly-stored  intellect,  he  got  along  with  himself 
very  well.  Meanwhile  the  world  advanced. 
Ill 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

No  wonder  William  Winter  could  not  understand 
or  appreciate  the  new  drama,  because  he  resolutely 
and  steadily  refused  intellectual  hospitality  to 
Ibsen.  Now  whatever  we  may  think  of  Ibsen's 
anarchistic  and  destructive  social  ideas,  the  might- 
iest influence  on  twentieth  century  drama  in  all 
countries  is  this  Norwegian  iconoclast.  If,  in 
Browning's  language,  we  measure  a  mind's  height 
by  the  shade  it  casts,  Ibsen  was  a  colossus.  With 
the  notable  exception  of  Rostand,  the  influence  of 
Ibsen  is  discernible  on  practically  every  important 
dramatist  of  to-day.  The  single  fact  that  he,  early 
in  his  career,  elected  to  write  plays  rather  than 
novels  was  potent  in  bringing  about  the  coming 
supremacy  of  the  drama.  His  revolutionary  effect 
on  the  technique  of  modern  drama  is  an  inesti- 
mable blessing.  He  redeemed  plot  from  artificiality, 
and  dialogue  from  unreality.  It  is  through  the 
redemption  of  dialogue  that  has  come  the  chief 
improvement  in  the  modern  theatre.  He  accom- 
plished this  supreme  result ;  he  compelled  audiences 
to  deserve  their  name ;  to  hear  plays  rather  than 
to  see  them,  thus  forcing  dramatists  to  write  for 
the  ear  rather  than  for  the  eye.  The  theatre  had 
reached  a  condition  where  serious  people  seriously 
spoke  of  the  spectators  at  the  theatre  and  the 
audience  at  a  ball  game  —  with  truth  in  both 
instances. 

112 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

This  new  drama  has  not  yet  found  among  Eng- 
lish-speaking actors  as  good  interpreters  as  the 
romantic  drama  used  to  enjoy ;  and  when  William 
Winter  indulged  in  his  familiar  denunciations  of  the 
modern  theatre,  he  was  really  thinking  of  the  good 
old  days  when  the  good  old  drama  was  presented 
by  the  good  old  stars  —  stars  who  were  either 
born  great  or  who  achieved  greatness,  not  stars 
that  had  greatness  thrust  upon  them.  I  have  no 
doubt  also  that  he  never  could  recapture  his  youth- 
ful delight  in  the  theatre ;  alas,  none  of  us  can. 
I  enjoy  certain  plays  to-day  that  in  my  youth  would 
have  been  quite  beyond  my  range ;  I  can  only  guess 
how  that  work  of  genius,  The  Legend  of  Leonora, 
would  have  passed  over  my  head  thirty  years  ago. 
But  I  am  sure  I  shall  never  quite  recapture  the 
uncritical  rapture  of  the  days  when  I  went  to  the 
theatre  before  seven  o'clock,  waited  for  the  doors 
to  open,  paid  twenty-five  cents,  raced  with  the  mob 
up  two  flights  of  stairs  to  the  top  gallery,  hurdled 
over  the  chairs  at  considerable  risk  to  reach  the 
first  row,  waited  eagerly  in  a  dark  auditorium  for  an 
hour,  watched  then  the  lights  go  up,  the  blase 
billionaires  stroll  to  their  reserved  places  in  the 
orchestra  chairs,  heard  the  piano  and  fiddles,  and 
finally  entered  into  Paradise ! 

I  feel  certain  that  much  of  William  Winter's 
bitterness  came  out  of  the  vale  of  years. 
I  11.^ 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

But  he  was  of  course  right  in  his  lamentation  over 
the  decay  of  acting.  Salvini,  Booth,  Irving,  Mans- 
field, Jefferson  (in  his  narrow  field)  are  gone ;  and 
between  their  departure  and  the  coming  reign  of  the 
repertory  actor,  there  is  a  confused  interval  where 
some  of  the  stars  are  as  far  behind  their  advertise- 
ments as  a  patent  medicine. 

The  idolised  actors  of  the  moving  picture  shows 
drew  from  our  American  humourist,  George  Ade,  a 
delightfully  burlesque  but  well-founded  comparison 
between  their  methods  and  effects,  and  the  art  of 
the  admirable  William  H.  Crane.  Here  follows  the 
speech  made  by  Mr.  Ade  at  a  complimentary  dinner 
given  to  Mr.  Crane  in  191 6,  and  every  sentence  in 
it  contains  matter  of  mirth  and  matter  for  thought. 

The  Drama  is  roughly  divided  into  Two  parts  —  Tragedy 
and  Comedy.  Just  Now  it  is  more  Roughly  divided  than 
Ever  before. 

According  to  all  traditions  of  the  Legitimate  stage,  the 
only  Distinction  between  Tragedy  and  Comedy  hinges  on 
the  Last  Act. 

In  the  good  old  days,  if  most  of  the  principals  curled  up 
and  Died  in  the  last  act,  the  play  was  a  Tragedy.  If  they 
stood  in  a  line  and  Bowed,  the  play  was  a  Comedy. 

Our  guest  of  Honour  and  You,  gentlemen,  can  recall  the 
time  when  a  Play  in  which  some  one  was  Shot,  Stabbed, 
Assaulted  and  Battered,  and  left  Unconscious  at  Centre  was 
a  genuine  Tragedy,  entitled  to  come  imder  the  Observation 
of  William  Wiater. 

114 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

Thanks  to  the  Southern  CaUfomia  School  of  Art  all  that 
has  been  Changed.  Nowadays,  when  the  Hero  is  Shot, 
the  Play-house  resounds  with  Shrieks  of  Laughter. 

When  he  is  struck  on  the  head  with  some  Blunt  Instru- 
ment and  falls  Unconscious  the  Large  Lady  seated  Next 
to  you  goes  into  a  Paroxysm  of  Mirth. 

If  he  is  seen  to  disappear  beneath  the  Waves,  with  Bubbles 
arising  to  mark  the  spot  at  which  he  sank,  the  Film  Ex- 
changes announce  that  the  Comedy  is  Sure  Fire. 

Mr.  Crane  can  remember  when  the  Comedian  received 
his  training  in  the  Library.  Now  he  gets  it  in  the  Gym- 
nasium. He  can  remember  when  Comedy  was  a  Dramatic 
Treatment  of  Conflicting  Purposes,  with  a  Happy  Ending. 

He  can  recall  a  Later  period  in  which  Comedy  was  any- 
thing that  would  make  them  Laugh. 

I  am  Wondering  if  he  can  revise  some  of  his  Quaint  Old- 
fashioned  Notions  and  accept  the  New  dictum  that  Comedy 
has  its  headquarters  Below  the  Waist-Une. 

However,  we  are  not  here  to  Brood  over  the  Degeneracy 
of  the  times. 

Doubtless  it  is  True  that  the  Drama  is  having  more 
things  Done  to  it  at  present  than  Ever  before. 

Real  Tragedy  is  io\md  Only  in  the  New  York  Offices  of 
the  Producing  Managers. 

The  most  Serious  contributions  to  Current  Theatrical 
History  are  the  Statements  from  the  One-night  Stands. 

Thespis  has  temporarily  stood  aside  to  make  room  for 
St.  Vitus. 

The  gentleman  who  could  not  write  Home  for  Money 
Five  Years  Ago  is  now  writing  Scenarios. 

The  delirium  seems  to  be  at  the  most  Acute  Stage  — 
temperature  about  104.    When  the  fever  Breaks,  the  Patient 


"S 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

is  going  to  be  very  Weak,  but  probably  he  wiE  be  out  of 
Danger. 

And  so,  in  these  times,  when  there  are  more  Theatres 
than  Delicatessen  Shops  and  all  you  have  to  Do  to  be  an 
Actor  is  to  have  your  picture  Taken,  it  is  well  to  be  Philo- 
sophical, knowing  that  Art  is  Long  and  Salary- Contracts 
are  Short. 

At  the  risk  of  repeating  what  All  the  other  speakers  may 
say,  I  wish  to  assure  Mr.  Crane  that  He  is  respected  by  the 
men  who  try  to  write  for  the  stage  because  he  has  Stood 
for  Reputable  Plays.  He  has  proceeded  upon  the  Theory 
that  the  Patrons  of  the  Drama  Hve  at  Home  with  their 
Own  Families. 

He  has  stood  for  Home- Grown  Plays  of  the  Kind  that 
strengthen  the  Self-respect  of  Americans. 

I  know  what  Mr.  Crane  has  Stood  For,  because  I  have 
written  two  Plays  for  him. 

It  is  because  he  is  the  spokesman  of  True  Comedy  and 
was  the  friend  of  the  American  play  when  it  didn't  have  a 
Friend  in  the  House  that  we  are  here  to  give  him  our  Verbal 
Bouquets. 

Those  of  us  who  are  more  than  fifty  years  of  age 
I  count  fortunate,  for  we  have  vivid  memories  of 
men  and  women  on  the  stage  whose  peers  do  not 
exist  to-day.  In  the  opera,  I  suppose  that  neither 
before  and  certainly  not  since  has  there  ever  been 
a  collection  of  singers  equal  to  the  Metropolitan 
Company  in  the  early  nineties,  under  the  direction 
of  Maurice  Grau.  The  cast  for  Faust  was  adver- 
tised as  the  "ideal  cast"  ;  and  it  really  was,  for  it  is 
ii6 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

impossible  to  imagine  how  an  opera  could  be  more 
perfectly  given  than  Faust  was  by  Jean  and  Edouard 
De  Reszke,  Lassalle,  Scalchi,  Bauermeister,  and 
Emma  Eames.  In  the  eighties,  those  of  us  who 
heard  Wagner  interpreted  by  Alvary  and  Lilli 
Lehmann  went  away  absolutely  content.  It  was 
a  fine  thing  for  America  that  New  York  possessed 
for  the  whole  winter  —  and  for  season  after  season 
—  the  foremost  operatic  company  in  the  world. 
And  although  America  has  produced  very  few  great 
men  singers,  America  has  given  to  the  world  more 
great  women  singers  in  the  last  twenty-five  years 
than  those  supplied  by  any  other  nation. 

In  the  theatre,  we  had  actors  who  also  equalled 
their  fame.  Booth  must  have  been  at  his  best  in 
the  seventies,  before  I  heard  him  ;  for  in  the  eighties 
although  I  went  again  and  again,  he  only  once  rose 
to  the  supreme  heights  —  that  was  one  night  in 
Detroit,  when  he  appeared  as  Shylock.  (I  have 
always  regretted  that  I  never  saw  him  in  The  FooVs 
Revenge.)  Irving  was  of  course  in  the  plenitude 
of  his  powers,  but  I  thought  him  greater  in  melo- 
drama than  in  Shakespeare.  He  was  never  satis- 
factory to  me  as  Shylock  or  Macbeth ;  but  in  The 
Bells,  Louis  XI,  and  especially  in  The  Lyons  Mail, 
he  was  overwhelming.  I  would  go  so  far  as  to  say 
that  those  who  never  saw  Irving  in  one  or  more  of 
these  three  roles,  never  saw  the  real  Irving  at  all. 
117 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

The  incomparable  and  indomitable  Sarah  Bernhardt 
reached  the  zenith  of  her  art  in  the  nineties,  and  in 
my  opinion  in  the  play  La  Tosca;  Coquelin  had 
absolute  command  of  all  his  resources ;  Duse  taught 
even  great  actors  new  lessons  in  sincerity;  the 
few  things  that  Jefferson  attempted,  he  did  with 
perfection ;  and  the  most  intellectual  English- 
speaking  actor  of  the  time,  Richard  Mansfield, 
hypnotised  us  all. 

I  regard  the  death  of  Richard  Mansfield  as  the 
severest  loss  the  modern  stage  has  suffered.  The 
range  of  his  genius  was  extraordinary ;  he  captured 
me  in  every  role  he  undertook,  except  Brutus.  He 
was  truly  brilliant  in  parts  so  different  as  Richard 
III  and  Prince  Karl ;  in  the  former  he  was  perfect. 
Never  shall  I  forget  the  grey  dawn  following  the 
ghost  scene,  and  his  cry  of  relief  when  he  clasped  a 
real  man  in  real  armour.  But  he  was  more  than  an 
actor.  He  was  not  content  merely  to  appear  in 
widely  different  roles ;  he  was  not  satisfied  to  be 
impeccable  as  Beau  Brummell,  splendidly  heroic  as 
Henry  V ;  his  eternally  gnawing  ambition  made  him 
determine  to  give  American  theatre-goers  oppor- 
tunities that  they  could  not  have  had  without  his 
courage  and  idealism.  When  we  compare  him  with 
Jefferson,  the  difference  in  this  respect  is  illuminat- 
ing. Jefferson  early  in  his  career  discovered  that 
Rip  Van  Winkle  was  a  gold-mine  of  inexhaustible 

ii8 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

ore ;  with  a  very  few  variations,  he  therefore  stuck 
to  that  all  his  days.  We  are  grateful  to  him  for  the 
happiness  he  gave  us  as  Rip.  But  so  far  as  I  can 
discover,  he  always  played  "  safe."  He  made  few 
ventures,  tried  few  experiments,  never  was  a  leader, 
and  contributed  nothing  to  the  modern  stage  except 
excellent  acting  of  a  few  time-worn  roles. 

Richard  Mansfield  could  have  become  fabulously 
rich  simply  by  sticking  to  a  few  certain  successes ; 
but  he  lost  fortunes  in  gallant  experiments,  not  one 
of  which  had  in  it  anything  ignoble.  He  not  only 
gave  Americans  their  only  opportunity  to  witness 
the  greatest  drama  of  modern  times,  Cyrano  de 
Bergerac,  but  think  of  the  daring  required  to  mount 
The  Misanthrope  and  Peer  Gynt ! 

It  is  my  belief  that  the  American  theatre  owes 
more  to  Richard  Mansfield  and  to  Maude  Adams 
than  to  any  other  actors  of  the  last  forty  years. 
In  the  legitimate  drama  Miss  Adams  has  been  for 
a  long  time  and  is  now  the  most  popular  woman 
on  the  stage ;  and  it  is  interesting  to  see  how  she 
acquired  and  how  she  maintains  this  success. 
Her  personaHty  is  so  rich,  so  striking,  so  winsome, 
that  she  could  easily  have  proceeded  from  conquest 
to  conquest  in  tawdry  and  silly  plays ;  but  it  is 
everlastingly  to  her  credit  that  from  the  beginning 
of  her  career  as  a  star,  she  has  not  once  been  identi- 
fied with  anything  but  the  best  available.  Ambi- 
119' 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

tion  in  a  star  is  often  a  ruinous  thing  for  her 
managers  or  supporters;  by  that  sin  fell  the 
"angels"  not  once,  but  many  times.  No  actor  is 
more  ambitious  than  Maude  Adam.s ;  she  would 
rather  miss  the  heights  occasionally  in  the  finest 
plays  than  triumph  in  those  on  a  lower  scale.  It 
is  worth  remembering  that  for  a  number  of  years 
she  has  appeared  only  in  the  plays  of  the  two  men 
who  are  respectively  the  first  living  dramatists  of 
France  and  Great  Britain  —  Rostand  and  Barrie. 
It  is  owing  to  her  that  we  had  in  America  the 
opportunity  of  hearing  in  English  VAiglon  and 
Chantecler  ;  and  although  the  critics  were  acidulous 
because  of  her  audacity  in  putting  on  the  latter 
play,  for  the  leading  r61e  of  which  she  was  con- 
spicuously unfitted  physically,  it  is  probable  that 
if  it  had  not  been  for  her  courage,  we  should  not 
have  seen  Chantecler  at  all,  and  it  would  have  been 
a  misfortune  to  have  lived  without  it.  Whatever 
may  be  said  of  her  lack  of  physique  in  this  r61e, 
the  audience  followed  from  beginning  to  end  with 
tense  interest,  and  I  thought  it  altogether  the  most 
impressive  play  and  performance  of  that  season. 
She  interprets  the  subtle,  charming,  and  profound 
character-studies  of  J.  M.  Barrie  with  consummate 
skill.  She  is  a  public  benefactor,  and  I  wish  she 
could  live  forever ;  she  has  developed  steadily  since 
her  first  season  with  The  Little  Minister^  and 
1 20 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

audiences  know  in  going  to  the  theatre  where  she 
appears,  they  will  see  not  only  a  fascinating  woman, 
but  the  best  play  of  the  year. 

I  wish  that  every  actor  and  every  theatre-goer 
in  America  would  read  Problems  of  the  Actor,  by 
Louis  Calvert,  published  in  191 8.  Mr.  Calvert 
was  one  of  the  most  accomplished  members  of  the 
New  Theatre  company ;  no  one  will  forget  his 
interpretation  of  old  Anthony,  in  John  Galsworthy's 
Strife.  Since  the  demise  of  that  organisation,  he 
has  appeared  in  various  roles,  the  most  important 
of  which  is  Andrew  Undershaft,  in  Major  Barbara. 
He  has  now  become  an  American  citizen,  and  hopes 
eventually  to  produce  many  plays  of  Shakespeare. 
No  one  knows  better  than  he  the  evils  of  both  the 
star  system  and  the  fashion  of  long  runs.  Both 
are  incompatible  with  anything  resembling  a 
national  theatre.  If  we  had  a  national  theatre, 
Mr.  Calvert's  position  in  it  would  be  very  much 
like  that  of  Feraudy  in  the  Comedie  Frangaise; 
for  both  M.  Feraudy  and  Mr.  Calvert  are  thor- 
oughly competent  artists  in  all  varieties  of  tragic 
and  comic  effect.  Both  have  been  trained  in  the 
most  intelligent  manner,  that  is  to  say,  in  a  good 
stock  repertory  company.  Mr.  Calvert  was 
brought  up  in  the  Manchester  theatre,  and  learned 
his  art  by  appearing  in  classic  and  modern  plays. 
In  this  new  book,  he  discourses  in  a  clear,  forceful, 
121 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

and  entertaining  manner  of  the  fundamental  things 
in  good  acting.  He  believes  the  actor  must  begin 
at  the  bottom,  and  work  up,  pajdng  attention  to  the 
mastery  of  every  detail.  Furthermore,  he  beHeves 
that  the  play  is  the  thing,  and  that  the  business  of 
the  actor  is  to  interpret  it.  But  he  speaks  not  only 
of  acting,  but  of  everything  connected  with  the 
presentation;  that  is  to  say,  of  scenery,  costume, 
lighting,  music,  and  in  fact,  of  all  necessities. 
Every  actor,  young  or  old,  will  learn  something  from 
this  book,  because  it  comes  out  of  long  and  success- 
ful experience;  and  every  play-goer  will  advance 
through  these  pages  toward  becoming  what  every 
play-goer  should  become — an  intelligent  critic. 

In  1905,  when  Major  Barbara  had  its  first  per- 
formance in  England,  Bernard  Shaw,  who  knew 
well  enough  the  real  capacity  of  Louis  Calvert, 
hoped  to  sting  him  into  superhuman  ejfforts  by 
the  following  letter : 

Deny,  Rosscarbery,  Co.  Cork, 
23d  July,  1905. 

Dear  Calvert :  Can  you  play  the  trombone  ?  If  not, 
I  beg  you  to  acquire  a  smattering  of  the  art  during  your 
holidays.  I  am  getting  on  with  the  new  play,  scrap  by 
scrap,  and  the  part  of  the  millionaire  cannon  founder  is 
becoming  more  and  more  formidable.  Broadbent  and 
Veegan  rolled  into  one,  with  Mephistopheles  thrown  in: 
that  is  what  it  is  like.     "Business  is  Business"  will  be  cheap 

122 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

melodrama  in  comparison.  Irving  and  Tree  will  fade  into 
the  third  class  when  Calvert  takes  the  stage  as  Andrew 
Undershaft.  It  will  be  TREMENDOUS,  simply.  But 
there  is  a  great  scene  at  the  end  of  the  second  act  where  he 
buys  up  the  Salvation  Army,  and  has  to  take  part  in  a 
march  to  a  big  meeting.  Barker  will  play  the  drum.  You 
wiU  have  a  trombone  —  or  bombardon  if  you  prefer  that 
instrument  —  and  it  would  add  greatly  to  the  effect  if  you 
could  play  it  prettily.  Besides,  if  you  took  to  music  you 
could  give  up  those  confounded  cigars  and  save  your  voice 
and  your  memory  (both  wrecks,  like  Mario's,  from  thirty- 
seven  cigars  a  day)  for  this  immense  part.  It  is  very  long  — 
speeches  longer  than  Keegan's  and  dozens  of  them,  and 
infinite  nuances  of  execution.  Undershaft  is  diabolically 
subtle,  gentle,  self-possessed,  powerful,  stupendous,  as  well 
as  amusing  and  interesting.  There  are  the  makings  of  ten 
Hamlets  and  six  Othellos  in  his  mere  leavings.  Learning 
it  wiU  half  kill  you,  but  you  can  retire  next  day  as  pre- 
eminent and  unapproachable.  That  penny-plain  and  two- 
pence-coloured pirate  Brassboimd  will  be  beneath  your  notice 
then.  I  have  put  him  off  for  another  year,  as  I  cannot  get 
the  right  Lady  Cicely.  Vedrenne,  unluckily,  has  read  my 
plays  at  Margate,  and  is  now  full  of  the  most  insane  pro- 
jxjsals  —  wants  Brassbound  instantly  with  you  and  Kate 
Rorke,  for  one  thing. 

But  the  trombone  is  the  urgent  matter  of  the  moment. 
By  the  way,  trombone  players  never  get  cholera  nor  con- 
sumption —  never  die,  in  fact,  until  extreme  old  age  makes 
them  incapable  of  working  the  slide. 

G.  Bernaed  Shaw, 

After  the  first  performance,  Mr.  Shaw  wrote  the 
actor  this  delightful  epistle : 
123 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

10  Adelphi  Terrace,  W.  C. 
My  dear  Calvert : 

I  see  with  disgust  that  the  papers  all  say  that  your 
Undershaft  was  a  magnificent  piece  of  acting,  and  "Major 
Barbara"  a  rottenly  undramatic  play,  instead  of  pointing 
out  that  "Major  Barbara"  is  a  masterpiece  and  you  the 
most  infamous  amateur  that  ever  disgraced  the  boards. 

Do  let  me  put  Gremlin  into  it.  A  man  who  could  let 
the  seven  deadly  sins  go  for  nothing  could  sit  on  a  hat  with- 
out making  an  audience  laugh.  I  have  taken  a  box  for 
Friday  and  had  a  hundredweight  of  cabbages,  dead  cats, 
eggs,  and  gingerbeer  bottles  stacked  in  it.  Every  word  you 
fluff,  every  speech  you  unact,  I  will  shy  something  at  you. 
Before  you  go  on  the  stage  I  will  insult  you  until  your 
temper  gets  the  better  of  your  lines.  You  are  an  impostor, 
a  sluggard,  a  blockhead,  a  shirk,  a  malingerer,  and  the 
worst  actor  that  ever  lived  or  ever  will  Hve.  I  will  apologise 
to  the  public  for  engaging  you :  I  will  tell  your  mother  of 
you.  Barker  played  you  off  the  stage ;  Cremlin  dwarfed 
you ;  Bill  annihilated  you ;  Clare  Greet  took  all  eyes  from 
you.  If  you  do  not  recover  yourself  next  time,  a  thunder- 
bolt will  end  you.  If  you  are  too  lazy  to  study  the  lines, 
I'll  coach  you  in  them.  That  last  act  MUST  be  saved, 
or  I'll  withdraw  the  play  and  cut  you  off  with  a  shilling. 
Yours  ever.  G.  B,  S.^ 

The  reason  why  a  stock  company  is  so  much 
finer  a  school  for  actors  than  any  other  stage- 
experience,  is  because  in  a  stock  company  every 
actor  on  the  stage  is  acting  all  the  time  whether  he 
is  at  the  moment  entrusted  with  a  speech  or  not. 
*  These  letters  appeared  in  the  New  York  Timss. 
124 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

Mr.  Calderon,  in  his  acute  criticism  of  Chekhov's 
plays  as  produced  at  the  Artistic  Theatre  in  Mos- 
cow, observes  that  every  member  of  the  cast  is 
busy,  and  compares  the  situation  to  that  of  the 
English  stage,  where  while  the  star  is  speaking,  the 
rest  of  the  company  resemble  that  "pathetic  Uttle 
group"  of  players  surrounding  a  golf  tee,  paralysed 
with  awe-struck  immobility. 

When  foreign  actors  who  have  been  properly 
trained  in  a  repertory  theatre  come  to  America, 
whether  they  speak  the  lines  in  a  native  or  a  strange 
tongue,  they  often  produce  a  powerful  effect  on 
intelligent  audiences.  I  remember  a  competent 
French  actress  of  no  particular  fame  in  Europe, 
who  presented  in  New  Haven  Bernstein's  play  The 
Whirlwind  {La  Rafale)  in  English ;  her  faulty 
accent  did  not  prevent  her  from  thrilling  us  all. 
When  Madame  Nazimova  first  came  to  this 
country  with  Orlenev,  I  heard  their  performance  of 
The  Master  Builder  in  Russian ;  and  although  the 
spoken  words  were  quite  unintelligible  to  me,  the 
play  most  emphatically  "got  over."  Later  Ma- 
dame Nazimova  learned  English,  and  presented 
Hedda  Gabler  in  a  manner  that  for  the  first  time 
made  this  drama  transparently  clear.  Her  success 
has  not  been  an  unmitigated  blessing.  She  has  since 
acquired  some  mannerisms.  But  before  her  early 
training  had  become  frayed,  she  was  wonderful.     I 

125 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

have  seen  Ibsen's  plays  spoken  in  English,  French, 
and  German ;  but  altogether  the  most  impressive 
production  was  that  given  in  America  and  in  the 
Russian  language  by  Madame  Komisarzhevskaia, 
the  only  actress  who  completely  convinced  me  that 
the  Nora  of  the  last  act  had  naturally  developed 
out  of  the  "Uttle  squirrel"  of  the  first.  Her  acting 
was  particularly  remarkable  for  its  reserve  and 
restraint ;  she  was  free  from  all  theatrical  tricks. 
In  America  she  was  eager  to  appear  in  Sister  Bea- 
trice, her  favourite  play,  and  how  I  wish  she  might 
have  done  so  !  But  to  her  complete  bewilderment, 
she  discovered  that  somebody  or  other  had  the 
exclusive  ''rights."  Later  she  became  a  martyr  to 
her  art ;  after  her  return  to  Russia,  having  promised 
to  act  in  a  province  where  there  was  an  epidemic  of 
smallpox,  she  insisted  on  keeping  her  engagement, 
although  implored  by  her  home-friends  not  to  do  so ; 
she  caught  the  disease,  and  was  followed  to  her 
grave  by  thousands  of  weeping  Russians.  I  have 
never  seen  either  on  or  off  the  stage  a  woman  of 
more  quiet  dignity ;  and  I  shall  forget  neither  her 
acting  nor  the  gracious  modesty  in  which  she  spoke 
in  conversation  of  her  ideals. 

Bernard  Shaw  jocosely  recommended  Louis 
Calvert  to  learn  the  trombone  because  trombone- 
playing  ministered  to  longevity.  Li  the  first 
chapter  of  this  book,  I  called  attention  to  the 

126 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

elevation  both  in  moral  character  and  social  position 
of  the  actors  in  a  resident  stock  company  as  com- 
pared to  barnstormers.  It  may  not  seem  to  any- 
one but  the  actor  himself  to  be  a  matter  of  impor- 
tance, but  I  believe  that  the  resident  actor  in  a 
repertory  theatre  will  certainly  live  longer  as  well 
as  more  happily  than  the  subordinate  player  on  the 
road.  Here  follow  some  statistics  collected  by  one 
of  my  pupils,  Mr.  W.  S.  Hunt,  which  throw  light 
on  the  average  longevity  of  actors.  I  do  not  have 
an  absolute  faith  in  figures  of  this  kind,  but  so  far 
as  they  go,  they  are  valuable.  These  numbers 
begin  with  English-born  actors  who  were  born  as  far 
back  as  1725,  and  continue  to  those  who  have  lived 
to  the  year  1900. 


Average  longevity  of  all  actors   .    .    . 
Average  longevity  of  all  actresses    .     . 
Average  longevity  of  the  Star  Actor    . 
Average  longevity  of  the  ordinary  actor 
Average  longevity  of  the  Star  Actress 
Average  longevity  of  the  ordinary  actress 

The  "ordinary  actress"  includes  chorus  girls 


55  years 

52  years 

66.8  years 

45  years 

61.2  years 

37.3  years 


It  will  be  observed  that  the  star  actor  lives  twenty- 
one  years  longer  than  the  ordinary  actor ;  the  star 
actress  nearly  twenty-four  years  longer  than  the 
ordinary  actress.  Perhaps  this  last  discrepancy 
reveals  the  conditions  of  life  for  the  women  who 
do  not  reach  the  top. 

127 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

Comparing  the  lives  of  eighteenth  century  actors 
with  those  of  the  nineteenth,  there  appears  to  be  a 
difference  of  only  about  two  years  in  favour  of  the 
nineteenth.  This  with  improved  theatres,  more 
sanitary  conditions,  better  aired  dressing-rooms,  etc. 

So  far  as  statistics  will  bear  out  the  statement, 
the  first  generation  of  actors  is  longer-lived  than 
the  second  by  about  seven  years. 

In  the  above  average  longevities  the  level  was 
raised  by  the  great  age  of  C.  Kemble,  W.  Betty, 
Macready,  Braham,  and  C.  Macklin  of  whom  one 
account  says  that  he  played  for  sixty-five  years, 
and  lived  to  the  age  of  one  hundred  and  two.  The 
level  was  somewhat  depressed  by  Adelaide  Neilson, 
who  died  at  thirty-two,  and  Edmund  Kean,  who 
died  at  forty-five. 

Not  only  will  the  properly  trained  repertory 
actor  live  longer  than  the  ordinary  actor  of  to-day, 
but  he  will  certainly  have  for  a  longer  time  the 
delight  of  activity  in  his  profession.  In  a  recent 
number  of  the  Manchester  Guardian,  there  is  an 
interesting  article  on  The  Stage  at  Seventy.  After 
commenting  on  the  decline  in  the  art  of  acting,  the 
writer  says,  ''The  question  is  not  whether  you  can 
act  but  whether  you  are  popular.  And  as  popu- 
larity is  perishable  goods  the  actor  now  lasts  no 
longer  than  a  fast  bowler,  and  the  actress  perhaps 
not  so  long.  .  .  .    With  the  ladies  the  case  is 

12S 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

worse.  They  rely  mainly  on  their  beauty,  which, 
unlike  humour,  does  not  endure,  and  unlike  art, 
does  not  increase  with  years.  As  between  incom- 
petents twenty-one  will  beat  thirty-one  almost 
every  time." 


129 


vn 

DRAMATIC  CRITICISM 

The  standards  of  dramatic  criticism  —  freedom  of  the  critic 
—  sincerity  —  some  good  dramatic  critics  in  America  —  is 
theatrical  criticism  an  art,  or  is  it  news?  —  fatal  effects  of  the 
morning  after  —  the  manager  and  the  critic  —  the  actor  and  the 
critic  —  monthly  criticisms  —  zest  for  the  theatre. 

Almost  as  important  as  the  elevation  of  the  art  of 
acting  and  of  the  social  position  of  the  actor  is  the 
elevation  of  the  standards  of  dramatic  criticism. 
The  public  does  not  care  very  much  what  the 
newspaper  critics  say,  because  of  the  general  sus- 
picion that  they  are  not  allowed  to  say  what  they 
think.  There  should  of  course  be  no  connexion 
between  the  press  agent,  the  advertiser,  and  the 
dramatic  critic.  Let  the  press  agent  lay  it  on  with 
a  trowel ;  let  the  advertisement  flare ;  but  let  the 
critic  say  what  he  conceives  to  be  the  truth.  The 
New  York  Times  had  the  courage  to  fight  this 
m-atter  out  with  the  managers,  and  the  Times  won. 
But  without  detracting  one  iota  from  the  courage 
of  the  Times,  that  great  newspaper  had  something 
in  addition  to  courage;  it  had  capital,  a  very 
present  help  to  freedom  of  opinion.  It  has  often 
130 


THE  TWEJ^TIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

been  stated  —  I  do  not  know  how  truly  —  that 
most  newspapers  cannot  afford  through  adverse 
criticisms  published  in  their  columns  to  run  the 
risk  of  losing  the  theatre  advertisements.  This 
is  not  a  condition  peculiar  to  America.  In  19 12  I 
was  informed  by  a  theatre-director  in  Munich  that 
the  same  unfortunate  condition  prevailed  all  over 
the  German  empire.  But  there  was  then  a  cor- 
rective in  Germany ;  the  first-night  audience. 
Whatever  the  critics  might  be  restrained  from 
saying  was  said  by  the  audience  in  no  uncertain 
tone.  No  matter  how  high  the  reputation  of  the 
actors,  no  matter  how  strong  their  hold  on  public 
affection,  if  the  play  was  bad,  the  audience  hissed 
or  gave  vent  to  their  feelings  in  roars  of  derisive 
laughter.  I  have  repeatedly  seen  famous  and 
beloved  actors  and  actresses  hissed  off  the  stage 
simply  because  the  play  was  flimsy  or  absurd. 
And  the  actors  understood  it  was  not  their  fault. 

A  great  dramatic  critic  with  a  free  hand  might 
have  a  powerful  influence  on  the  American  stage. 
Nothing  perhaps  is  more  difficult  than  to  win 
lasting  fame  in  the  field  of  literary  or  dramatic 
criticism.  But  it  is  not  impossible.  Lessing, 
Hazlitt,  Sainte-Beuve,  Sarcey,  Arnold,  Bielinski, 
Herzen,  have  had  a  real  effect  on  the  course  of 
literature  and  drama.  If  the  New  Theatre  had 
arranged   that  one  high-class  critic   should  write 

131 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

authoritative  reviews  of  each  new  production,  the 
result  would  have  been  salutary. 

The  dramatic  criticisms  that  appear  in  most  of 
our  newspapers  certainly  do  not  reflect  anything 
more  than  the  average  intelligence  of  the  audience. 
And  if  one  reads  many  newspapers  outside  of  our 
large  centres  of  population,  as  I  do,  one  must 
believe  that  the  majority  of  dramatic  criticisms 
published  in  them  are  as  timid  as  they  are  undis- 
criminating.  It  is  not  very  often  that  one  finds  a 
combination  of  sincerity  and  cerebration.  I  re- 
member reading  with  agreeable  surprise  the  follow- 
ing article  —  remarkable  only  for  candour  —  in  a 
Hartford  newspaper,  in  March,  1903 :  "The  set- 
tings and  costumes  were  elaborate  and  the  audiences 
were  well  pleased,  applause  and  laughter  being  the 
rule.  The  price  charged  for  the  best  seats  in  the 
house,  two  dollars,  seems  large  for  a  play  of  the  kind 
presented,  but  if  people  are  willing  to  pay  that 
amount  there  is  no  reason  why  the  management 
will  not  charge  it.  It  is  a  fact,  however,  that  early 
in  October,  1901,  The  Altar  of  Friendship  was  given 
a  much  better  production  by  John  Mason  and  his 
companions  and  that  the  house  was  but  partly  filled 
at  that  time,  though  the  scale  of  prices  was  much 
lower."  This  brief  criticism  was  refreshing  for  two 
things ;  its  refusal  to  surrender  to  bad  acting,  and 
its  ability  to  refer  to  something  better  in  the  past. 
152 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

So  much  of  the  work  of  play-notices  is  handed  over 
to  reporters  or  to  journalistic  birds  of  passage,  that 
neither  standards  nor  background  can  be  expected. 

Outside  of  professional  circles,  I  suppose  men 
rarely  buy  a  newspaper  to  see  what  the  dramatic 
critic  says  of  such  and  such  a  performance;  but 
if  we  had  more  critics  of  wit,  of  intelligence,  of 
intrepid  honesty,  I  think  the  circulation  of  news- 
papers might  be  increased  by  them,  just  as  many 
a  newspaper  has  had  a  large  addition  made  to  its 
subscription  list  by  the  regular  contributions  of  a 
good  professional  humourist  or  cartoonist. 

In  the  autumn  of  1908,  one  journal  in  New  York 
attacked  another,  distinctly  saying  that  a  critic 
had  been  dismissed  because  his  writings  offended 
the  managers,  and  his  employers  felt  that  they  could 
not  afford  to  lose  the  advertisements.  The  journal 
thus  attacked  immediately  brought  suit  for  libel. 
I  regret  that  this  case  never  came  up  in  the  courts, 
for  it  would  have  given  the  public  an  opportunity 
to  learn  the  truth.  It  may  be  that  the  attack  was 
unfair  and  that  the  resulting  general  suspicion  was 
groundless ;  but  a  general  suspicion  on  matters  of 
literary  integrity  is  a  good  thing  for  nobody,  and 
the  whole  subject  ought  to  have  been  made  clear. 

There  are  in  America  a  number  of  excellent  dra- 
matic critics,  men  who  are  well  equipped  in  scholar- 
ship, in  knowledge  of  the  modern  drama  in  both 

133 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

Europe  and  America,  and  who  know  how  to  write 
penetrating  and  luminous  criticism;  such  men  as 
Walter  P.  Eaton,  James  S.  Metcalfe,  John  Corbin, 
Acton  Davies,  James  Huneker,  George  J.  Nathan, 
J.  R.  Towse,  Clayton  Hamilton,  H.  T.  Parker,  by 
no  means  exhaust  the  list ;  they  have  done  good 
service,  and  are  capable  of  doing  more.  For 
some  reason,  the  trained  musical  critics  seem  to 
have  a  freer  hand  in  adverse  criticism  than  their 
brothers  in  the  field  of  drama.  W.  J.  Henderson, 
H.  T.  Finck,  H.  E.  Krehbiel,  Max  Smith,  and 
others  have  no  restraint  of  any  kind,  if  we  can 
judge  by  the  opposition  they  arouse.  It  is  the 
common  belief  that  more  special  knowledge  and 
training  are  required  for  the  position  of  musical 
than  for  dramatic  critic;  possibly  therefore  these 
gentlemen  feel  the  security  that  comes  from  recog- 
nition as  an  expert  authority. 

An  excellent  English  dramatic  critic  told  me  that 
he  often  fell  asleep  during  the  first  night  of  a  play ; 
and  upon  my  naively  asking,  ''Aren't  you  afraid 
the  author  will  see  you?"  he  replied,  "If  he  did, 
he  would  be  the  last  person  to  mention  it." 

There  is  one  reform  that  seems  to  me  to  be 
essential  if  we  are  to  have  authoritative  dramatic 
criticism.  The  critic  should  not  be  forced  to  write 
his  article  the  same  night  of  a  play,  nor  should  it 
ever  appear  on  the  morning  after.    As  a  matter  of 

134 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

common  fairness  to  the  playwright  and  to  the 
theatrical  manager,  the  critic  should  be  allowed 
sufficient  time  for  adequate  reflection  and  com- 
position. The  dramatist  may  have  spent  two  years 
of  hard  labour  on  his  piece ;  the  manager  has  spent 
much  money ;  the  actors  may  have  been  carefully 
drilled ;  and  the  critic  is  expected  to  put  into  the 
impressively  permanent  form  of  type  a  judgment 
on  the  whole  production  instantaneously  formed  and 
written  in  feverish  haste.  One  New  York  critic 
told  me  that  he  always  wrote  his  criticisms  on  the 
elevated  train  running  from  near  the  theatre  to  the 
office  of  the  newspaper.  He  who  runs  may  read ; 
but  he  who  runs  cannot  write.  This  seems  gro- 
tesquely unfair  to  those  who  have  spent  so  much 
time  and  effort  in  preparation,  and  to  whom  suc- 
cess or  failure  is  vital. 

It  is  as  absurd  to  expect  a  competent  criticism 
the  morning  after  the  first  night  as  it  would  be  to 
insist  that  a  book-review  should  appear  the  day 
after  pubhcation.  Indeed  the  latter  would  be  more 
reasonable;  for  at  all  events  the  Uterary  critic 
would  have  the  book  before  his  eyes  in  cold  type. 

This  evil  custom  of  the  morning-after  arises  from 
the  common  notion  that  dramatic  criticism  is  not 
an  art,  but  "news" ;  and  that  therefore  the  sooner 
it  appears  the  better.  Now  the  morning  after  a 
j5rst  night,  there  should  be  in  the  newspaper  a  brief 

I3S 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

and  accurate  account  of  what  actually  happened 
at  the  theatre.  The  name  of  play  and  author ;  the 
principal  actors ;  the  kind  of  play ;  its  reception  by 
the  audience.  Criticism  should  be  reserved  for  the 
day  following  or  for  the  Sunday  Supplement. 

I  have  not  seen  the  slightest  allusion  to  the 
following  fact,  but  I  feel  like  paying  a  tribute  for  it 
to  the  New  York  Tribune.  During  the  last-  two 
years,  the  Tribune  has  contained  no  criticism  of  a 
new  play  until  two  days  after  the  performance. 
So  far  as  I  know,  this  is  the  only  American  news- 
paper that  has  adopted  this  custom. 

In  Paris,  a  repetition  generate  precedes  the  first 
night.  No  tickets  are  sold  for  this  dress  rehearsal, 
but  all  the  critics  are  invited.  The  next  day  comes 
the  premiire,  when  the  critic  may  go  again  if  he 
wishes;  his  review  is  not  published  until  the  day 
after  the  premiere,  and  detailed  criticism  is  even 
then  customarily  reserved  until  the  Sunday  issue. 
Winthrop  Ames  adopted  this  idea  at  the  Little 
Theatre;  an  audience  that  filled  the  house  was 
invited  to  attend  the  dress  rehearsal,  for  it  is  impos- 
sible to  judge  correctly  of  the  value  of  a  play  unless 
a  real  audience  is  present ;  then  came  the  premiere. 
Unfortunate^  for  his  plan,  nearly  all  the  newspapers 
published  their  criticisms  of  the  play  the  morning 
after  the  dress  rehearsal,  seeming  to  be  afraid  that 
some  other  papers  might  get  ahead  of  them. 

136 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

Our  metropolitan  Sunday  papers  have  for  some 
years  past  endeavoured  to  correct  the  evil  of  snap- 
shot judgment  by  printing  two  pages  about  the 
local  theatres,  wherein  the  critic  has  an  opportunity 
to  correct  himself,  revise  his  opinions,  and  treat 
important  plays  in  the  lengthy  and  detailed  manner 
they  deserve.  Many  of  these  articles  are  exceed- 
ingly valuable  to  students  of  contemporary  drama. 
The  Tribune  is  the  only  daily  paper  that  attempts 
to  classify  current  productions  in  a  weekly  list; 
while  hundreds  of  the  floating  population  in  New 
York,  who  constitute  of  course  the  majority  of 
the  audiences,  consult  the  excellent  and  pungent 
"guide"  provided  in  every  number  of  Life  by  the 
accomplished  veteran,  Metcalfe. 

The  ordinary  manager  hates  the  critic,  and  in 
many  cases  wishes  that  all  dramatic  criticism 
could  be  abolished.  Even  if  the  manager  can  to 
any  extent  control  the  criticism  in  the  newspaper, 
he  does  not  like  the  job,  for  it  gives  him  no  end  of 
trouble ;  but  he  knows  that  adverse  criticism  really 
hurts  his  business,  and  causes  almost  hysterical 
distress  in  his  company  of  players,  many  of  whom 
have  to  be  soothed  and  stroked  before  they  feel 
like  going  on.  To  him  the  critic  is  a  constant 
nuisance.  But  I  believe  that  if  criticism  could  be 
properly  deferred,  could  always  be  honest  and 
intelligent,  and  whether  adverse  or  favourable, 
137 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

could  be  constructive  —  mere  denunciation,  sar- 
casm, or  gush,  replaced  by  something  aidful  — 
the  fair-minded  manager  might  come  to  look  upon 
the  critic  as  a  valuable  ally. 

Actors  and  actresses  are  hair-trigger  sensitive, 
as  are  all  people  who  live  by  public  favour ;  even 
the  great  Lessing  in  the  eighteenth  century  was 
forced  to  abandon  criticisms  of  the  performers, 
after  a  few  visits  from  irate  actresses.  As  a  rule, 
even  this  kind  of  adverse  comment  might  be  made 
more  helpful  than  it  sometimes  is ;  though  there 
are  occasions  when  simple  annihilation  is  the  only 
way.  I  remember  in  a  column  review  of  Tree's 
Hamlet  in  the  New  York  Sun,  one  sentence  was 
devoted  to  Mrs.  Tree.  "  Mrs.  Tree  played  OpheUa ; 
and  she  should  never  do  it  again."  And  at  one 
outrageous  presentation  of  a  great  Continental 
drama,  the  Sun  critic  closed  his  review  by  the 
remark,  "The  players  threaten  to  repeat  the  per- 
formance to-morrow  night." 

But  I  insist  that  all  criticism,  both  praise  and 
blame,  ought  to  be  so  constructive  that  it  will 
help  not  only  the  prospective  theatre-goer,  but 
the  dramatist,  manager,  and  actors.  It  is  easy 
enough  to  score  off  a  bad  performance  by  holding 
it  up  to  public  ridicule ;  but  what  real  advantage 
is  gained  by  this?  We  read  a  display  of  the  critic's 
ironical  powers  with  a  laugh,  and  then  straightway 

138 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

forget  all  about  it;  but  the  unfortunate  actor  or 
actress  is  sleepless  with  writhing  agony.  As  the 
critic  whets  his  beak,  let  him  reahse  the  probable 
effect  of  his  words ;  then  if  he  is  certain  that  ulti- 
mate good  will  result  from  castigation,  let  him  bite, 
backed  by  brains  and  conscience.  And  of  course, 
in  most  cases,  sincere  condemnation  is  more  fruit- 
ful than  unintelligent  praise. 

Another  thing.  I  have  often  taken  up  a  metro- 
politan journal  to  see  what  the  dramatic  critic  says 
of  a  new  play,  and  J&nding  a  column  and  a  half, 
begun  to  read  with  eagerness,  only  to  discover  that 
three-quarters  of  the  ''criticism"  is  a  detailed 
account  of  the  plot  of  the  piece.  This  seems  to  me 
worse  than  superfluous.  When  I  go  to  a  new  play, 
I  never  want  to  know  the  story  in  advance ;  half 
the  pleasure  is  in  watching  the  fable  develop ;  and 
one  cannot  nearly  so  well  judge  of  the  playwright's 
skill  if  one  knows  beforehand  all  the  climaxes. 
I  suspect  the  only  reason  why  so  many  critics  take 
up  the  major  space  of  their  articles  with  retelling 
the  plot,  is  because  they  have  not  a  sufficient  num- 
ber of  ideas  to  fill  a  column  with  real  criticism. 
That  is  the  inference  I  invariably  draw. 

Owing  to  the  unsatisfactory  nature  of  hasty 
newspaper  dramatic  reviews,  which  fail  to  satisfy 
the  growing  army  of  Americans  who  take  a  serious 
interest  in  the  theatre,  many  monthly  magazines 

139 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

now  employ  a  trained  critic  to  discuss  contemporary 
productions.  Some  of  the  most  thoughtful  essays 
on  the  modern  drama  may  be  found  in  these 
periodicals.  Mr.  Lawrence  Oilman,  in  the  North 
American  Review,  who  is  a  literary,  musical,  and 
dramatic  critic,  often  supphes  an  article  worth  pres- 
ervation. Clayton  Hamilton  serves  with  equal  use- 
fulness on  the  staff  of  The  Bookman.  A  sign  of  the 
times  is  the  fact  that  only  recently  has  the  New  York 
Nation  devoted  a  regular  department  to  the  drama. 
Best  of  all,  every  year  sees  more  and  more 
amateur  critics  in  American  audiences ;  men  and 
women  who  know  the  difference  between  good  and 
bad  plays,  between  good  and  bad  acting,  persons 
who  cannot  be  deceived  by  counterfeit  coin.  If 
all  audiences  were  intelligent  and  discriminating, 
the  millennium  of  the  drama  would  materialise. 
Everyone  who  has  made  even  an  elementary  study 
of  the  art  of  the  theatre  knows  how  enormously 
his  deHght  in  a  good  performance  is  increased  by 
knowledge.  It  is  a  pity  that  so  many  theatre-goers 
witness  a  play  so  ignorantly;  they  look  on  at  a 
play  as  a  man  would  regard  a  game  of  chess  who 
did  not  know  the  difference  between  a  pawn  and  a 
knight.  But  so  soon  as  one  understands,  so  soon 
as  one  sees  the  mind  of  the  dramatist  interpreted 
by  subtle  acting,  one  enjoys  pure  happiness.  Men 
and  women  ought  to  take  dramatic  art  seriously  if 
140 


THE  TWENTIETH   CENTURY  THEATRE 

for  no  other  reason  than  to  add  to  the  pleasure  of 
existence. 

And  what  happiness  the  theatre  gives  us  !  Some 
of  the  happiest  afternoons  and  evenings  of  my  Hfe 
have  been  passed  in  witnessing  plays  —  pure,  flaw- 
less delight  that  remains  as  a  permanent  addition 
to  memory.  The  theatre  is  one  of  the  greatest 
blessings  of  humanity,  and  I  feel  an  unpayable 
debt  of  gratitude  to  the  dramatists,  the  managers, 
and  the  long  list  of  actors  and  actresses  who  have 
by  their  efforts  given  me  so  much  pleasure.  Nor 
shall  I  ever  become  sufficiently  sophisticated  to  lose 
the  keen  anticipation  of  a  night  at  the  play.  I  am 
not  ashamed  to  confess  that  I  love  the  preliminary 
moments,  the  crowded  house  of  men  and  women, 
who  have  left  their  troubles  somewhere  else ;  the 
lights  and  the  proleptic  music ;  the  sudden  dark- 
ness ;  the  ascent  of  the  curtain  —  these  will  thrill 
me  to  my  last  hour  on  earth. 

Of  all  the  pages  of  Addison,  I  like  most  the 
description  of  Sir  Roger  at  the  play.  ''As  soon  as 
the  house  was  full,  and  the  candles  lighted,  my  old 
friend  stood  up  and  looked  about  him  with  that 
pleasure  which  a  mind  seasoned  with  humanity 
naturally  feels  in  itself  at  the  sight  of  a  multitude 
of  people  who  seem  pleased  with  one  another,  and 
partake  of  the  same  common  entertainment." 


141 


POSTSCRIPT 
Rostand  and  France 

For  many  centuries  to  come  the  word  France 
will  be  a  word  full  of  glory  and  honour,  and  all 
those  who  have  French  blood  in  their  veins  will 
be  glad  of  it.  The  heroic  sacrifices  made  by 
France  and  the  French  people,  since  the  iavaders 
occupied  their  soil  in  1914,  have  awakened  the 
lasting  admiration  of  the  whole  world.  The 
Germans,  in  an  attempt  to  destroy  France,  have 
raised  her  to  the  highest  pinnacle  of  splendour. 

I  believe  that  the  personality  of  Edmond  Ros- 
tand and  the  spirit  of  his  great  dramas  have  had 
no  small  influence  on  the  modern  French  mind, 
and  I  believe  that  they  have  been  an  inspiration 
to  the  French  soldiers  and  women  in  this  war. 
The  spirit  of  all  has  been  the  spirit  exhibited  by 
Cyrano.  The  Parisian  attitude  of  skepticism, 
cynicism,  and  mockery,  characteristic  of  a  cer- 
tain group  of  writers  in  Paris  before  19 14,  has 
been  transformed  into  a  spirit  of  heroism.  I  re- 
member reading  an  article  by  a  French  critic  in 
191 2,  who  said  that  nowadays  the  only  attitude 
143 


THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  THEATRE 

possible  toward  the  so-called  great  problems  of 
life  was  a  Smile.  This  attitude  has  ever  been 
detestable  to  Rostand,  and  his  plays,  poems,  and 
speeches  have  been  a  conscious  protest  against 
it.  When  he  was  elected  to  the  French  Academy, 
his  address,  delivered  on  the  fourth  of  June,  1903, 
was  a  call  to  arms  —  a  call  for  a  spiritual  awaken- 
ing. He  meant  to  make  Idealism  respectable, 
and  not  only  respectable,  but  fashionable.  In  this 
memorable  speech  we  find  the  following  words: 
''The  poison  of  to-day,  which  we  have  no  longer  the 
right  to  dose  people  with,  is  the  delicious  essence 
which  stupefies  conviction  and  kills  energy.  We 
must  restore  passion.  And  even  emotion,  which 
is  not  absurd.  We  must  remind  these  timid 
Frenchmen  who  are  always  afraid  of  not  being 
sufficiently  ironical,  that  there  can  be  plenty  of 
modern  cleverness  in  a  resolute  eye." 

France  has  shown  this  marvellous  spirit  since 
the  year  1914.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  Cyrano 
de  Bergerac,  which  I  believe  to  be  the  greatest 
drama  of  the  modern  period,  has  been  also  an  un- 
speakably stimulating  and  ennobling  force. 


144 


INDEX 


Achelis,  T.,  86. 

Adams,  M.,  her  career,  iig,  120. 

Addison,  J.,  Sir  Roger  at  the  play, 
141. 

Ade,  G.,  his  speech  on  acting,  114- 
116. 

Ames,  W.,  Little  Theatre,  ai,  136. 

Andreev,  L.,  5. 

Anglin,  M.,  103. 

Anspacher,  L.,  The  Unchastened 
Woman,  5,  18,  59. 

Antoine,  A.,  Paris  director,  76,  77. 

Archer,  W.,  comment  on  American 
and  British  stage,  60,  66;  trans- 
lation of  Ibsen,  85. 

Bahr,  H.,  5. 

Baker,  G.  P.,  his  Harvard  course, 
83,  84. 

Barker,  G.,  5 ;  his  New  York  pro- 
ductions, 21,  44,  59,  92. 

Barrett,  L.,  his  Cassius,  106. 

Barrett,  W.,  96. 

Barrie,  J.  M.,  5,  7 ;  publishing 
plays,  8;  What  Every  Woman 
Knows,  14 ;  The  Old  Lady  Shows 
Her  Medals,  40;  The  Twelve 
Pound  Look,  63;  Leonora,  113; 
Little  Minister,  120. 

Barrymore,  L.,  his  acting,  59. 

Becque,  H.,  77,  83. 

Bennett,  A.,  7,  72. 

Bernhardt,  S.,  118. 

Bjornson,  B.,  4. 

Booth,  E.,  los,  106,  117. 

Browne,  M.,  Chicago  Little 
Theatre,  77,  78. 

Browning,  E.  B.,  remark  on  Salvini, 
106. 

Browning,  R.,  90,  106,  112. 

Biurton,  R.,  Rahab,  89. 


Caine,  H.,  dramatising  novels,  54. 
Calderon,  G.,  criticism  of  Chekhov, 

125. 
Calvert,  L.,  his  services,   21,  22; 

production  of  Tempest,   104 ;  of 

Winter's  Tale,  106 ;  his  book,  121 ; 

relations  with  Shaw,  1 21-124. 
Chekhov,  A.,  5,  7 ;  Cherry  Orchard, 

26;  Calderon's  remark  on,  125. 
Cohan,  G.  M.,  his  advance,  73,  74. 
Coquelin,  C,  118. 
Corbin,    J.,     134;     production   of 

Tempest,    22,    104;  remarks   on 

Herod,  91. 
Corelli,  M.,  56. 

Cournos,  J.,  article  on  Craig,  45. 
Craig,  G.,  his  ideas  on  scenery,  44, 

45- 
Crane,  W.  H.,  Ada's  tribute  to, 

114,  115. 
Crawford,  J.,  work  at  Dartmouth, 

84. 
Crocker,  C.  T.,  86. 

Daly,  A.,  his  company,  18. 

D'Annunzio,  G.,  5. 

Davies,  A.,  134. 

Dillingham,  C,  the  Hippodrome, 

38. 
Dreiser,  T.,  his  plays,  79,  80. 
Drew,  J.,  103. 
Dryden,  J.,  his  prefaces,  10. 
Duse,  E.,  108,  118. 

Eaton,  W.  P.,  134. 

Eliot,   S.   A.,   Indianapolis  Little 

Theatre,  79. 
Euripides,  64. 


Faversham,  W.,  91,  103. 
Feraudy,  M.,  121. 


I4S 


INDEX 


Fiuck,  H.  T.,  134. 

Fiske,  M.  M.,  53,  88. 

Fitch,    C,    founder    of    American 

drama,  '5 ;  The  Truth,  60. 
Fitzsimmons,  R.,  his  acting,  57. 
Forbes-Robertson,  J.,  75,  103. 
Frohman,   D.,   his  work   for   the 

theatre,  18. 

Galsworthy,  J.,  5,  7;  Justice,  16, 
18,  80;  Strife,  121. 

George,  G.,  her  stock  company,  18, 
21,  22. 

Gihnan,  L.,  his  critics,  140. 

Glaspell,  S.,  Trifles,  78. 

Goodman,  J.,  84. 

Gorki,  M.,  s,  7. 

Greet,  B.,  production  of  Everyman, 
88;  recent  Shakespeare  produc- 
tions, 97. 

Hackett,    J.    K.,    production    of 

Macbeth,  104. 
Hamilton,    C,    his    critical   work, 

134,  140. 
Hardwick,  J.  B.,    her  ballad    on 

dramatised  novels,  55. 
Hardy,  T.,  The  Dynasts,  5,  92. 
Hauptmann,  G.,  5,  7;  Weaiers  in 

English,  18. 
Henderson,  W.  J.,  i34' 
Herbert,  V.,  Eileen,  41. 
Heyse,  P.,  88. 
Hofmannsthal,  H.,  5. 
Holt,  R.,  speech  on  the  drama,  81, 

82. 
Hopkins,  A.,  director,  37. 
Hopkins,  €.,  director,  86. 
Horniman,  A.  E.  F.,  her  Manches- 
ter company,  25. 
Housum,  R.,  The  Gipsy  Trail,  37. 
Howard,  B.,  his  prophecy,  6. 
Huneker,  J.,  134. 
Hunt,    W.    S.,    statistics    on    the 

longevity  of  actors,  127. 


Ibsen,   H.,  4;  his  influence,   112;    Nathan,  G.  J.,  134. 
Russian  actresses  of,  125,  126.        Nazimova,  A.,  125,  126. 

146 


Ingersoll,   R.,   remark  on   Shake- 
speare, 109. 
Irving,  H.,  best  in  melodrama,  117. 

James,  H.,  remark  on  printing 
plays,  8. 

JeSerson,  J.,  118,  119. 

Jones,  H.  A.,  5 ;  publication  of 
plays,  9;  prefaces,  10;  remark 
on  Shakespeare,  103. 

Jonson,  B.,  attack  on  Elizabethan 
drama,  2-4;  prefaces,  10;  Silent 
Woman,  83 ;  mention  of  Shake- 
speare as  an  actor,  107. 

Keene,  T.  W.,  94. 
Knoblauch,  E.,  84. 
Komisarzhevskaia,   her   acting   of 

Ibsen,  126. 
Krehbiel,  H.,  134. 

Lemaitre,  J.,  remark  on  Antoine's 

experiment,  76. 
Lessing,  G.  E.,  138. 
Levick,  M.,    acting   of   Mercutio, 

105. 
Lyman,      E.,     founder     of     the 

Northampton  theatre,  75. 

Mackay,  C,  her  book  on  Little 
Theatres,  74-77. 

Maeterlinck,  M.,  4;  Blue  Bird,  26; 
Mary  Magdalene,  88. 

Mansfield,  R.,  Shakespeare  pro- 
ductions, 95,  104;  his  career, 
118,  119. 

Mantell,  R.,  his  rise,  107. 

Marlowe,  J.,  103. 

Masefield,  J.,  89. 

Mather,  M.,  105. 

Mathison,  E.  W.,  89. 

Metcalfe,  J.  S.,  criticisms,  134,  137. 

Miln,  G.  C.,  acting  Hamlet,  94. 

Modjeska,  H.,  104. 

Moody,  W.  v.,  s,  7. 


INDEX 


Opp,  J.,  appearance  in  Herod,  g. 

Parker,  H.  T.,  134. 
Parker,  L.  N.,  8g. 
Parry,  M.,  86. 
Peabody,  J.  P.,  84,  90. 
Phillips,  S.,  5,  7 ;  Herod,  89,  91,  92. 
Pinero,  A.  W.,  s,  72. 
Poll,    S.,    his   New   Haven    stock 
cotapany,  22,  23. 

Rea,  J.,  allusion  to  Jonson,  3. 

Rostand,  E.,  4,  112;  La  Samari- 
taine,  88;  Cyrano,  119,  144; 
Chanleder,  1 20 ;  his  influence  on 
the  French  war  spirit,  143,  144. 

Salvini,  T.,  105,  106. 

Sargent,  F.,  his  services,  82,  83. 

Sayler,  O.  M.,  article  on  Laughing 
Gas,  80. 

Schnitzler,  A.,  5. 

Shakespeare,  W.,  remarks  on  act- 
ing, 107,  108;  Tempest,  22,  104; 
Titus  Andronicus,  93 ;  Macbeth, 
94,  103-10S  ;  Hamlet,  94-96,  103, 
105,  107,  108 ;  Julius  Ccesar,  95, 
105,  106 ;  Romeo  and  Juliet,  96, 
103 ;  Othello,  Japanese  perform- 
ance of,  97-101,  103,  105 ;  Lear, 
loi,  107,  109;  Much  Ado,  103; 
Merchant  of  Venice,  103,  117; 
As  You  Like  It,  103 ;  Taming 
of  the  Shrew,  103 ;  Measure  for 
Measure,  104 ;  Henry  V,  105 ; 
Winter's  Tale,  106;  Antony  and 
Cleopatra,  20 ;  King  John,  107  ; 
Twelfth  Night,  110;  Richard  III, 
118. 

Sharp,  W.,  prophecy  on  the  drama, 
S- 

Shaw,  G.  B.,  5,  7;  prefaces,  10, 
II ;  Major  Barbara,  18, 122-124 ; 


remark  on  beginning  perform- 
ances, 62;  Androcles,  90;  rela- 
tions with  Calvert,  122-124. 

Sheldon,  E.,  84. 

Smith,  M.,  134. 

Sothern,  E.,  53,  95,  103. 

Stanislavski,  his  Artistic  Theatre, 
26. 

Steele,  R.,  attack  on  contemporary 
stage,  4. 

Strindberg,  A.,  4. 

Sudermann,  H.,  5,  7 ;  Johannes, 
88. 

Sullivan,  J.  L.,  his  acting,  57. 

Synge,  J.,  5. 

Tarkington,  B.,  79. 

Tellegen,  L.,  romantic  drama,  58. 

Thomas,  A.,  5 ;  The  Witching  Hour, 
23 ;  The  Copperhead,  59. 

Tolstoi,  L.,  5,  83 ;  attack  on  Shake- 
speare, 95,  loi,  102. 

Towse,  J.  R.,  134. 

Tree,  H.  B.,  47,  138. 

Walker,  S.,  his  work  as  producer, 

78,  79.  89. 
Walter,  E.,  5 ;  The  Heritage,  59. 
Wescott,  H.  D.,  founder  of  Yale 

Dramatic  Association,  85. 
Wheeler,  A.  C,  remarks  on  scenic 

excess,  45. 
Wilcox,  E.  W.,  play  from  Esther, 

89. 
Wilde,  0.,  5 ;  Salomi,  88. 
Williams,  J.,  5,  59. 
Winter,   W.,   his   attacks  on   the 

theatre,  xii-113. 

Yeats,  W.  B.,  $. 

Ziegfeld,  F.,  his  letter  on  ticket- 
speculating,  48-51. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


147 


v»  >. 


CENTRAL  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
University  of  California,  San  Diego 


\inv  n2iq7fA^^ 

.DUE 

AIOV  0  2  REmi 

JUN  U19Bl 

JUN  03 1980 

NOV  2  9  1985 

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DEC  04  1985 

C139 

UCSD  Libr. 

